


Reaping Beauty

by KingAlanI



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-04 03:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingAlanI/pseuds/KingAlanI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By Alan Gilfoy in the world of Suzanne Collins. Glimmer volunteers one year earlier than in canon, and Johanna is reaped one year later than in my headcanon. They discover they have some rather significant things in common. So do two girls from District Twelve, inspired by the tribute couple. (My first attempt at writing slash)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Love And Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 73rd Hunger Games’ female tributes from Districts One and District Seven are both actively bisexual and quickly become very interested in each other.

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

            “You’re two years too young,” Cashmere insisted.

            “You know I can do it,” I countered.

            “Why do you want to rush, Glim?” she wondered.

            “With Diamond winning last year, and Sapphire the year before that, I want to make it three, a honor above and beyond even a regular Hunger Games victory,” I explained. “After all, you won the year before your brother, which helped make your victories extra-special,” I said triumphantly, because I didn’t think she could counter that.

            “You always were ambitious, Big Shiny,” she admitted. Her and Lil’ Shiny, my sister Lustre, were the only two people I let use that nickname. “There are no other obvious female candidates this year – you have my vote.”

In the better districts, several people competed for the honor of volunteering for the Hunger Games, and the past victors determined who would actually receive it.  District One had twelve living victors – Gloss would almost certainly agree with his younger sister, and their father Chrome and grandfather Facet would likely follow. Emerald, who won nineteen years ago, had always liked me. All twelve were mindful of continuing their legacy, but Sapphire and Diamond were especially mindful of who had the best chance of extending their streak. I don’t think Cashmere and I were deluding ourselves – that person was me. So I had my seven votes, imagine my surprise when the victors returned a unanimous decision in my favor. Diamond had been named after a victor nearly a half century ago; the elder Diamond and Cashmere’s grandpa Facet had won over all of the older Victors.

Jane was the pinnacle of a glamorous Capitol woman, yet I didn’t even notice what name she had picked – in District One, that was merely a formality before a brave young man and woman said the words “I volunteer as tribute”. It was finally my turn to utter that magic phrase, along with Alpha Miner, a boy I did not know except for relatively small interactions in the academy which trained us for the Games. Sapphire and Diamond were amongst the many girls that had put out for him, but I hadn’t – I didn’t understand what was appealing about an idiot braggart like that, however handsome and strong he was. Miss Silversmith, Miss Hoffman and his many other lovers insisted he was well-equipped, and that was very much how Glimmer liked her boys, but still, Alpha never appealed to me. I would’ve rather had Sapphire and Diamond themselves, but alas, they were born to feel that their jewels were for boys only, whereas I had the luck to be created open-minded as well as open-legged.

 

(Johanna Mason)

 

            One more year and my worry would be over. The past six years, I had survived the Reaping and twelve kids from District Seven hadn’t. May the odds be ever in your favor, they said, about entering and winning the Games, but I took it to mean not being thrown into the arena in the first place. My little brother James had already avoided death once. Both of us found love much preferable. He was always going on and on about the girls he had crushes on. The ladies that were too old for him, I was glad to take off his hands and put into my hands. The memories of fondling their breasts caused me to almost involuntarily touch my own chest lumber.

            One more reaping, and I would be back in the woods cutting down trees to feed the Capitol lumber and paper mills. It wasn’t much of a life, but it was life instead of death, and it had developed my muscles and skills with an ax. The boys around here appreciated toned and athletic women. I _appreciated_ their physique too - I certainly liked their look enough to drop my pants, open my legs, and take them inside me.

            Yet it was not to be. The Capitol airhead’s hand just had to find one of the seven slips that read ‘Johanna Mason’. I had long since been determined to be the fourth District Seven victor if it ever came to that, but I knew how unlikely that was, facing the bloodthirsty volunteers of One, Two and Four. At least Jamie was safe another year – I didn’t want to face my own kin, and he had no chance anyway.

 

            Peacekeepers threw me into a car as if I was a criminal like the ones The Capitol punished nearly a century ago. I saw Pine and Blight at the train station. They were old men, but they had won this once, and I would be wise to listen for tips on how to join them. “Seems Miss Airhead gave us a strong girl to work with this year,” Blight said to assess my physique – I could tell his intention was nonsexual, since I knew darn well what men sounded like when they wanted a piece of Mason ass. Also, by omission he said that I had a better chance than my district partner – I wouldn’t have bet on that scrawny little boy even if he wasn’t my competition. “Pretend you’re weak,” Blight offered as his first piece of advice. “so when you demonstrate your strength, they won’t see it coming.” Johanna Mason was nothing if not smart, and I found this irresistibly clever.

 

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

            Cashmere had prepared me for this moment, when we were on a luxury train hurtling towards the Capitol. We sat back in soft spacious chairs as we reviewed the other eleven reapings on giant screens and had Avox servants ply our mouths with the most delightful Capitol delicacies. Districts Two and Four provided the expected physical wonders, for they were much like my own District One in their loyalty to the Capitol. In most of the other districts, Peacekeepers dragged scrawny little kids kicking and screaming to the Reaping stages. In Three, they were stoic and had smirks on their faces, hardly uncommon for the clever technologists native to that district. The girl from Seven was in wonderful shape, probably from chopping wood all day as they did in the land of lumber and paper. Her forearms glistened in the summer afternoon sunlight, and I probably would have seen her abs shine too had she been wearing a smaller shirt. I had worn some of my very best dresses and jewelry for this occasion. I would wear one of my rings as a token of home in the arena. It had been a gift from Emerald. Yet Miss Seven was in common clothes like it had been any other day. She was as well-muscled as any boy, yet she was all-woman, and I wanted those hands all over _my_ womanly parts…. _snap out of it, Glim! This isn’t a time for two people making love! This is a time for 24 people trying to kill one another!_

 

(Johanna Mason)

 

            The train was damn nice, instead of our rustic life back in a District Seven hut, but I focused on the task ahead of me, paying little mind to the fancy food the Capitol’s servants put in front of me. I ate aimlessly as we watched the tapes of the other 22 tributes being chosen or volunteering – I needed to understand the competition as thoroughly as possible if I stood a chance of outliving them. At first glance, I saw what was expected out of the District Two and Four brutes and no other threats from my fellow outer districts. One was a different story. The boy looked particularly strong, a threat for obvious reasons. He was tall and handsome, which would obviously draw a lot of positive attention from the vain residents of the Capitol. He wore tight-fitting pants which showed off his assets below the waist – I was starting to get distracted, let alone the Capitolites. I knew better than that, and had started to snap out of it when the camera refocused on the female from that lowest-numbered district. They way her braided pigtails bounced against her shoulders, the way her dark green eyes stared with an intensity that I had only seen in my brown orbs, the way her whole shapely figure moved as she walked up to the stage…I wanted her next to me, preferably with minimal clothes in the way, let alone any fabric at all. _Blight wants me to put on a weak act? Maybe I can appear the lovestruck girl, but I’m afraid I’m not just pretending._

 

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

I’d have time for at least a short nap before we arrived in the Capitol. The city was beautiful, and so were the fashions of its people. The train station wasn’t so decorated, but it still shined. Tribute trains were the station’s only business on Reaping Day, yet the platforms were packed with Capitol residents wanting to get glimpses of the brave tributes. The display of pending arrivals listed 3/2 from the west, 7/6/5 from the northwest, 4/10 and 11/9 from the southeast, and 12/8 from the east. I couldn’t wait for the northwest train. I’d have to see how impressive that Johanna girl was in person, preferably as she pressed up against me. Us tributes from One, Two and Four always formed an alliance, and sometimes invited particularly deserving tributes from other districts. Johanna seemed most promising this year, and not just as a way for me to get closer to her.

 

(Johanna Mason)

 

            I tried to calm my nerves by laying in the luxurious Capitol bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. Eventually we started heading through the tunnels in the mountains surrounding the Capitol. The city looked so garish, both from a distance and up close, and as I analyzed the crowds at the train station, I thought the people were just as bad. The station information said that 3/2 was due from the west, 7/6/5 from the northwest, 4/10 and 11/9 from the southeast, and 12/8 from the east. District One surrounded the Capitol, so I wasn’t sure what direction Glimmer would be coming from. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but be intrigued with the District One beauty. “Blight, screw that ‘weak’ shit,” I told the relatively youngest of my two old mentors. “I’m going to try to get into the Careers.”

            “Try to get into a particular Career’s pants,” he teased. He was more accurate than I would have liked to admit.

            I saw the District One train pull up on the same side the platform we had landed on. This year’s mentors, Cashmere and her brother Gloss, were no slouches in the looks department either. Yet it was the female tribute I meant when I decided to cop an attitude and shout out “Hey, sexy!”

 

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

            The tributes from Five, Six and Seven were still on the platform when our train arrived at the station, operative part being the female tribute from Seven. As soon as our team’s feet hit the station’s solid marble, Miss Mason called out “Hey, sexy!”. She was looking right at me as she said that, I just knew it. I looked back at her, and her response to my glance confirmed my wishful thinking. I disregarded Cashmere and Jane’s standard instructions to walk up to this Johanna. My fellow tribute reached out with her hand, not to shake mine, but rather to cop a feel, I thought, as her hand ‘accidentally’ brushed across my waist.

 

(Johanna Mason)

 

            Glimmer obviously saw in me what I saw in her. It wasn’t accidental as my ‘hug’ went lower than the standard friendly embrace, and I don’t think it was accidental as her hands gripped my ass. _Right there, Shinesmith. Right there._ Even the sexually expressive District One girl didn’t dare go farther with the crowd surrounding us. I wondered if it was even possible for two tributes from opposing districts to find time alone. Even before the chariots had paraded us into the Capitol, we already had a love or death situation on our hands.


	2. Gazing From Afar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two girls from District Twelve ponder latent versions of the feelings that they saw very publicly expressed by two of that year’s female tributes

(Margaret ‘Madge’ Undersee)

I couldn’t believe my eyes when watching the broadcast of the tributes’ arrival in the Capitol. I wanted a woman to hold me like how Glimmer and Johanna were holding each other, although of course without that whole ‘probably going to die soon’ part.  
I knew for years that I had felt that way. Even Gale, the most handsome boy in the district, didn’t attract me. That helped me realize it would be a woman I’d love. Gale spent much of his time in the woods with my friend Katniss. I didn’t know how she felt. She didn’t seem attracted to Gale either. I wondered if perhaps she wasn’t ready for love of any sort. On the other hand, maybe Katniss wasn’t attracted to men either. I clung to that hope - in such a small district, it would be hard enough to find a girl like me. Most of the girls at school drooled over Gale and male Victors like Finnick Odair, I admit I entertained similar thoughts about the recent lady victors Stephanie and Winnow, and they were very entertaining thoughts indeed. Katniss and I were different from those schoolgirls – we simply did not get involved in our classmates’ vapid discussions, even when they were talking about something besides boys. I appreciated her intelligent company even with no spark between us.  
My parents had figured it out – of course a parent would know or should know such an important and obvious fact about their child. I knew I could even marry another woman; I’d seen my father the mayor handle the paperwork a few times, and he had made a point of inviting me to the Justice Building on such days. My mother was a wreck due to her twin sister Maysilee dying in the arena 23 years ago; my trouble in finding love made her feel even worse.  
It sadly could be problematic to publicly express that key part of my identity just like regular people did, even more so due to my father’s political position. Disapproval of such behavior was one of the Capitol’s many ways of looking down on the districts. The Capitol gladly embraced homosexuality amongst the city’s own residents, so it was hypocritical besides. Furthermore, I felt Capitol lesbians were just as unidentifiable as the other people that lived in that city.  
Maybe Glimmer and Johanna would draw such wrath, or maybe them being popular tributes would help lead to a change. It looked like another year for the ladies. District One females had won the last two years, and three girls from other districts in the years before that. Decades ago, there had been two streaks of five males from different districts. More recently, there had been two consecutive opposite-gender pairs from the same district. Glimmer was 16 – maybe she volunteered early to try and continue the streak. The other volunteers were already 18 anyway – Glimmer’s district partner Alpha, Claudia and Justinian of Two, and Seashell and Poseidon of Four. I didn’t understand why anyone would want to take on such a high risk of death. The odds were usually in the inner districts’ favor without us rooting for them. Repeat wins are a bitter pill to swallow in my district, which hadn’t had any victors at all in 23 years, the last being Maysilee’s ally Haymitch Abernathy. I wanted District Twelve to finally win again this year, but I knew how unlikely that was, so I was rooting for Johanna.

(Katniss Everdeen)

Gale didn’t hoot and holler over the two female tributes’ torrid embrace like some of the boys at school. He was a rebel to the core, and that’s what he saw in it – insubordination, not lust. I was used to his defiant diatribes, but this was something new. “The Games are about dividing the districts,” he insisted, “and here we saw One and Seven very much not divided,” he joked. He was hopeful while analyzing their motives. “Maybe it’s intentional, for Glimmer to take a stand and for Johanna to make the best out of a very bad situation.” We certainly understood that. “Winning a lover and an ally will make it seem innocuous to the Capitol. Maybe that’s all they intended, but maybe it will spiral out of control.” I agreed with him on that, and not just for the sake of being friendly. Whatever those girls were thinking, they had come up with it quickly. Since the Capitol kept the districts so rigidly separated, there was no way Shinesmith and Mason could have known about each other before today.  
I was glad I wasn’t with them. The Capitol had given me another year that they shouldn’t have the power to take. Four down, three to go. My darling little sister Prim still faced all seven, starting next year. Gale and I were in a very similar situation, in this as in many other things – he had six years behind him and one left, with one of his brothers facing his first reaping next year.  
However, there was one aspect of it I didn’t want to discuss, even not with him, or especially not with him. Watching Glimmer and Johanna excited me in a way that I thought boys were supposed to. I didn’t think about love much at all. I couldn’t afford to – me, Prim and Mother were barely surviving as is without me being distracted. I saw what losing my father had done to my mother and couldn’t bear to risk a similar fate for myself. I also considered the effect having him had on her – she abandoned her life in the relatively rich part of town to be with him, which seemed like madness. I didn’t want to lose my mind to that extent.  
I loved him as much as one can love a father, so I understood how she could love him so much as a husband. Their love had been obvious just looking at them, before the mines took his body and her mind. I wasn’t particularly close to Mother – I still resented how she had nearly abandoned her children out of grief over losing their father. I took after him and not Mother like Prim had, which proved to be necessary for our survival.  
I didn’t know who else to talk to about this. Prim was too young to know about such things, and I shared most things with Gale, but not this, especially not this – it was too weird even though there was nothing romantic between us. I couldn’t afford to jeopardize the hunting-partner relationship that both our families’ lives depended on and I didn’t want to risk the strong nonromantic friendship we had built up these three years. Maybe he thought the same. There were some other people in District Twelve’s black market that we did good business with, but Madge was the only other real friend I had – she was surprisingly similar to me, considering she was the mayor’s daughter.   
Except for the two of us, it seemed like most of the girls in the district wanted Gale, so he would have no trouble finding a wife. The few times I thought about that, I worried how it might impact our work and friendship, and I figured I was afraid of love in general. Maybe it wasn’t boys I was born to love.


	3. We Have Arrived

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glimmer and Johanna build their relationship while focusing on the task ahead of them, which may well separate the pair and leave one or both of them dead.

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

            I was already exceedingly well-groomed anyway, so the prep team just had to touch me up a bit. “Making District One girls look good is not difficult,” one of them observed. Stephanie had been a Games stylist for a few years now, and she brought out some wonderful feathers and furs. However, she insisted it wasn’t safe to go through the chariot ride in heels, darn her. Johanna’s attitude would already be news. Too bad the District Seven stylists put their tributes in stupid tree costumes yet again.

 

            The Careers usually gathered in the training center soon after the arrival parade. This year, my behavior with Johanna would be an obvious topic of discussion. We gathered for the first night’s dinner. Johanna and I joined Seashell and Poseidon of District Four in having seafood. She greeted me at the serving table by pulling my body close, but we had to separate to go eat – I couldn’t much call her a Career without the approval of the other five. Alpha and Justinian were both stuffing themselves with a messy pile of food – I saw fried potatoes, noodles in cream sauce, spiced beef, and sausages.

 

            “Maybe Glimmer doesn’t like Academy classmate dick,” my District Two counterpart Claudia guessed. “I can’t get enough of it,” she continued.

            “That’s for sure!” Justinian added. The way he casually said it, I figured they were occasional partners, if that even – definitely nothing more.

            “Oh, Glimmer likes plenty of that too. Seems she’s put out for most of the guys at school except me,” Alpha parried. “And some of the girls too,” he continued. As much as his attitude could annoy me, I gave him some credit for that.

            “Yeah, people can go both ways you know,” I said sarcastically at Claudia and Justinian. To get the discussion back on topic, I added “And those muscles of hers have gotta be good for something – considering District Seven, probably axes.”

            Seashell helped me play the diplomat, saying “Glimmer already took care of our biggest outside threat – I’m not really concerned about any of the other 17 tributes, are you?”

            “Me either,” her district partner concurred. “Dmitri and Silica might be clever like tributes from Three often are, but we obviously wouldn’t know that yet. Them and other surprises maybe, Johanna definitely.”

 

(Johanna Mason)

 

            _Do they want fighters or models?_ I thought as another damn wax strip was torn off with some of my leg hair attached. _I’m not surprised that the natural look given by years of work is a foreign concept here._ With my legs bare, I asked them to leave the spot between my legs alone, and surprisingly, they agreed. That would be visible only to me (and Glimmer!) anyway.  They smoothed out my hands, appendages worn from wielding hefty double-bladed axes, as if I was meant to hold nothing but golden trinkets. _Ah hell, who am I kidding, I was all over Glimmer, and District One takes after the Capitol. Granted, they can’t afford the heights of our masters’ insanity._

 

            Tree costumes again. Our stylists sucked as bad as the ones for Twelve, who were in crappy miner outfits as usual. Apparently this was all they could think of. After my stunt with Glimmer, it would have helped to show how sexy I am; Glimmer’s own stylist certainly had no trouble with that! Seven last had a victor 21 years ago, and the odds hadn’t been in Six, Ten, Eleven or Twelve’s favor for decades either. The Capitol starved and overworked us, so the tribute staff didn’t have much to build on, but some of them weren’t even trying. Five, Eight and Nine had been lucky to have Victors within my lifetime; it was time for me personally to be so fortunate.

 

            For once in our lives, what little probably remained of them, we got to eat well. I found myself next to Glimmer at the seafood station of the buffet. I hooked my arm around her waist and I knew she wanted more, but I wasn’t a Career yet, so we sat down at separate tables. I couldn’t blame her for not wanted to go over their heads.

 

            After the meal was over and Avox slaves began to clean up from it, the tributes began to leave the hall. Glimmer smiled at me and made an apparently celebratory hand gesture. I followed her back to her apartment, if only because the 1st floor was closer than the 7th floor. Whatever, Blight and Pine can both go work with Elm; he needs the help. As I followed the District One team into their quarters, Glimmer’s mentor Cashmere gave her the same gesture Glimmer had given me. Cashmere’s brother and fellow victor Gloss was trying to get the District One boy Alpha to leave us alone. I followed Glimmer into her bedroom and shut the door behind us.

 

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

            “Now where were we?” Johanna asked with a twinkle in her eye.

            “You’re probably in the alliance. You’re definitely in my pants,” I answered.

            “What about my pants?” she wondered, immediately dropping the bottom half of the ugly utilitarian tribute uniform.

            She had worn the underwear but had taken it off in the same motion - I saw its waistband and the pants’ waistband in a pile together on the floor. Yet there was still something underneath. “Seems there’s one forest you don’t cut down,” I joked.

            “Yeah. The Seven preps are too lazy to care, and this is the silver lining,” she explained.

            “Looks like a brown lining to me,” I continued. _The carpet matched the drapes. She was the kind of girl to leave herself as is, and I ironically found her plain beauty exotic._

            While laughing over that, she managed to say “Seems we’ve got a comedian here”.

            “I knew you were hot as soon as I saw you, but that attitude is what really turned me on. Glimmer likes bad boys and bad girls,” I explained.

            “Apparently you do! I’ve had plenty of both myself,” she explained while feeling my jewel through my clothes. It was wet and getting wetter. This all confirmed both her attitude and my appreciation of it. I didn’t want cotton between her hand and my lower lips for much longer. She barely let go for long enough for me to strip, and then her hand shot right back between my legs to press my button. I was writhing all over the bed from the moment she touched me. I had plenty of appreciation for the raw power of a big dick, but there was something I liked even more about the nimble and delicate skill of the right woman. The right men damn well tried to touch me like that, and some were quite good at it, but I remembered nothing like this.

My body was already shaking, and when she leaned down to kiss me there, my mind was blown along with it. She left no trail of kisses - she went right for my treasure. I was already as aroused as I could possibly be, so I was glad she was no tease. “’Hanna,” I moaned as I began squirming all over the huge bed.

As she came up for air, she said “Call me whatever you want, I know you’re calling me for dessert!” _Oh, ‘Hanna!_ , I thought as I spread my legs even wider and thrust my hips forward. Overtaken by this intoxicating display of lust, she went right back to burying her face in my nether regions.

 

(Johanna Mason)

 

            With Glimmer’s juices wetting my face, I leaned back to triumphantly shout “my turn!” Considering the state she was in, I knew she’d waste no time in taking care of _Hanna, apparently. Most people, lovers or not, who shortened my name went the other way and called me ‘Jo’._

As she leaned into kiss me, I whipped my shirt off, wondering why it was still on. She actually began licking her own musk off my face before putting her tongue in my mouth. I often pinned people to the mat, but I was no stranger to this form of wrestling either. Our hands were plenty busy – she cupped my ass again while I undid my bra clasp. When she had practically torn off her panties, my hand had gone right to her newly exposed beaver, and as my stiff nipples were exposed, her hands went right to those. We were both sloppy as we fondled each others’ breasts; we both had firm boobs instead of monstrous flappy ones and we both seemed to like that in other women.

She dropped her hands to my waist again. This time, with nothing between us and no one else around, she pulled me close to grind against me. I was on fire and gladly returned the favor. Her butt was more supple than firm; I savored that sensation and the rest of her body, a traditional beauty to the Capitol and her district, but an exotic one to me. She was driven wild by me grinding right back against her. When we collapsed back onto the cushiony bed, I stayed there instead of getting up to get dressed and leave. My still form only encouraged her more. “Yeah, I’d stay here too. We have only a few days left together, let’s get as much as we can out of them,” she said. “And let’s make sure one of us has decades left with others,” she finished.


	4. Double And Famous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glimmer and Johanna’s torrid romance is the main story in the lead-up to that year’s Games.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously in Reaping Beauty: The 73rd Hunger Games’ female tributes from Districts One and District Seven are both actively bisexual and quickly become very interested in each other. Two girls from District Twelve ponder latent versions of such feelings. Meanwhile in the Training Center, Glimmer gets Johanna into the Career Alliance and into her pants.

(Lustre Shinesmith – Glimmer’s sister)

 

            I was well aware that my sister had a very active love life, and we long since knew she was going to volunteer for the Hunger Games some day, but I hadn’t expected her to be feeling up her competition. I had seen her with some girls before as well as lots of boys, so that part wasn’t a surprise. I just knew that Glim was going to make it home, but that meant the other girl wouldn’t. “This doesn’t make sense,” I said to Mom while we were watching the Games broadcast.

            “Lust does have a way of getting people to do things that don’t make sense,” she said back in a tone that meant _words to live by_.

            I didn’t bring it up with Dad. He was always worried about the odds not being in her favor. Even when Big Shiny was here in the district with us, Dad was annoyed by her constant parade of lovers. Just wait until Lil’ Shiny grows up to be just like her big sister.

Dad didn’t like all that, but he did like my drawings and wanted to make jewelry out of them one day – that was his job, to make beautiful things out of precious metal.

Glim was even more pretty and glamorous than usual standing in the wheeled cart pulled by beautiful horses. She was wrapped in a bright fur coat, and the fabric moved as she waved her arm. My sister had the wonderful smile that ran in the family. As she showed off her immaculate teeth to the Capitol crowd, she was getting so many flowers thrown at her. The boy next to her did not look bad either, but Glimmer knew him and had told me “Idiot boys aren’t worth it, no matter how handsome they are”. _Some of_ her _‘words to live by’_.

I had kissed several boys, some of them fairly heavily, but no girls yet. Maybe I would turn out to be like Glim in that way too. I wasn’t quite thirteen yet. Fourteen was the big birthday, since then you could have sex with someone, boy or girl, if they were also fourteen. Glim had spent much of that day with a boy she knew from Career training named Agate. Agate liked a girl named Amber now. I hadn’t picked anyone yet, but if Glim could find someone in a day, I could find someone in a bit over a year.

 

(Katniss Everdeen)

 

            “There you are, Little Duck!” I said as I saw my darling little sister Prim come to the kitchen fully dressed after her bath.

            “Hi Katniss!,” she said, simply glad that the Capitol hadn’t stolen her fiercely protective big sister this year at least. I wouldn’t burden her with Gale’s rants – sometimes they tire _me_ out, and who knows what the youngest Everdeen might repeat to the wrong person?

Gale taught me that we at least shouldn’t enjoy the macabre spectacle, that it takes away some of the Games’ power over Panem when people care no more than the Peacekeepers make them care. Heck, although some of our Peacekeepers were still full of the propaganda from their training, a lot of them didn’t care much themselves – many were regular customers at the Hob black market where we were amongst the regular sellers. However, the heightened tension of the Games and the Peacekeeper reserves sent from elsewhere in Panem didn’t help.

“That’s the only time I’ve seen you happy watching the Games,” Prim continued. It was obvious what ‘that’ meant – Glimmer and Johanna being magnetically drawn to each other. “You liked that.”

“Maybe I did,” I agreed, “but I thought you had no idea – you’re too young to kiss boys or girls, let alone do whatever it is they were doing.”

            “Your Little Duck knows more than you think,” she said with an air of satisfaction. “And maybe Madge does too,” she suggested. The implication was twofold in mentioning Madge but not Mother. As much as she loves Mother, she understands my distance. I apparently don’t understand even the few people I’m close to.

 

            I thought about it while out in the woods with Gale the next day. I’d mention it to each of them in person, but I had no idea how. If I was acting differently today and Gale sensed it, he wasn’t showing it. Most of our talking was practical communication about the hunt. The woods actually gave me a perfect opportunity to go see Madge. On our way back to the fence, I told him “I’ll deliver the strawberries to Fort Undersee”.

            This was his sarcastic nickname for the mayor’s house, relatively luxurious compared to the rest of the Merchant Section, let alone our shacks in the Seam. He smiled at it and said, “See ya at the Hob, Catnip.”

 

            I forded the moat of Fort Undersee, puddles left over from yesterday’s heavy rains. Fortunately, the daughter was at the gate and not the father. I presented her with the bag of strawberries and she gave me a silver denarius. Usually I got only a few bronze assarions, and today she essentially gave me sixteen of those. I knew I had found more than usual today, but I don’t think I had ended up with that much more. I didn’t complain as I pocketed the coin to complete the transaction.

Yet I had also come here for something far more difficult. “Madge, I think I might be…,” I stammered in front of the mayor’s daughter. I was glad I had worked up the courage for even that. I found it odd that this scared me and repeatedly violating several of the Capitol’s most important laws didn’t.

            “Like Glimmer and Johanna?” Madge said to finish my sentence.

            “How did you know?” I asked, amazed.

            “I’ve long since known I was … like them, as you put it. I wasn’t sure about you...,” she answered before I interrupted her.

            “I wasn’t sure about myself!” I said emphatically.

            “I have a pretty good way to help you find out,” she suggested. She picked out one strawberry and bit off all but the leaves. Her lips were still dripping with strawberry juice when she pressed them up against mine. It was exciting enough to watch – the feeling was overwhelming when I was personally involved. It sure wasn’t about the strawberries – it was hunger of a different kind. She broke away to say “You have no idea how much I’ve always wanted to do that. I dreamed you’d be an even better lover than a friend.”

            “Sweet dreams,” I replied. _I was grinning - apparently Madge also makes me smile._ I shut her up by kissing her back.

            “Goodbye, Katniss,” she said, beaming even more broadly.

 

            This occupied my thoughts as I went through the normal Hob work in a daze. Amongst other things, I couldn’t wait to tell Prim how well it went. “I discovered that it’s girls I like to kiss,” I announced as I dropped my game bag in the kitchen of our shack.

            Mother was there too, and she answered. “I was shunned over my particular choice of husband, and I swore I’d never do that to my own daughters if the time came. Apparently that’s not the choice you face anyway.”


	5. What We Came To Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glimmer and 5 others now face what they’ve been planning for their whole lives. Johanna and 17 others are in the situation they’ve dreaded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously in Reaping Beauty: The 73rd Hunger Games’ female tributes from Districts One and District Seven are both actively bisexual and quickly become very interested in each other. Two girls from District Twelve ponder latent versions of such feelings and express them to each other. Meanwhile in the Training Center, Glimmer gets Johanna into the Career Alliance and into her pants – in public, they’re the stars of the tribute pool.

(Stephanie – Glimmer’s stylist)

 

            I was not impressed with most of my colleagues this year, like usual. Only Two and Four tended to be a threat to One, for both tributes and stylists. I knew how important my role was, so I figured unenthusiastic and unimaginative designers weren’t doing the outer districts any favors.

This year, I sort of cared, since my charge was smitten with the girl from Seven. I loved my work and the tributes I worked with – that could be said for all of the inner district stylists, but the ladies of District One were a special joy to design for. I had seen some losses since I reached the pinnacle of my profession a few years ago, but I was riding high on having played my part in two straight victories with a beautiful chance at a third.

It was common for tribute staff to work together when the tributes themselves formed an alliance. I was familiar with Catherine, Robin, Michael, Adam and Mark. I barely knew the name of the clown working for Seven – Justin, I think. I’d have to pay him a visit to talk some sense into him, for both Glimmer and Johanna’s sake. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked from behind the door of his apartment.

“To the fact that you need to do your job,” I answered as he opened the door. “Johanna was Seven’s best hope in awhile even before she formed an alliance with my tribute,” I explained crisply.

“A horizontal alliance?” he joked.

“I don’t know what positions they used,” I said, the air of seriousness already having been broken. “At any rate, you put her in the same damn tree costume – you should be ashamed of yourself and how you represented our profession.”

“You’re right,” he said, suitably shamed. His voice quickly turned from embarrassed to upbeat. “I’ve got it! A tree-kini, she’ll be wearing nothing but leaves over her tits and cunt.”

“Language!” I shouted, aghast.

“No shit, you motherfucker! Gonna bitch about my vocabulary some more? Did an Avox piss in your cereal? Are you just annoyed that neither of those girls is a cocksucker like you?”

 _I’ll tolerate the torrent of profanity, but don’t insult my relationship with my tributes! Granted, I had once given some blowjobs at an office party that had already gone way out of control._ “That was one time, when I was even drunker than you are right now!” I shouted, prickly at being reminded of the debauchery by him of all people.

“I understand why some of the victors get hammered – losing tributes sucks!” he countered.

“Maybe you lose them partially because you’re too drunk to help them. Heck, the tree-kini is a great idea, but you might not have thought about it or might not have remembered if you did.”

“I will remember it,” he answered confidently.

“I’ll make sure of it,” I replied. I took out the notebook and pen I always carried. I elegantly wrote ‘Tree-kini’ on one of the blank sheets, and then carefully separated the perforations. I had a Capitol seal magnet on me as well, and used it to attach the sheet to his beer fridge where he’d be sure to see it. _Ugh, how can someone drink Platte when they have access to fine wine?_

 

(Claudia Milano)

 

            Glimmer was half right in thinking Johanna was more than just a pretty face. I didn’t see what was so attractive about the District Seven girl. Two and One looked a bit different, but most outer district people looked way different and I figured Glimmer would have found it too odd. There was a reason Glimmer’s people made beautiful things for a beautiful city, mine fought for the Capitol, and the likes of Johanna did hard simple work for it.

 

            For Justinian and me, the real Training Center was in one of the many caves back home in District Two. However, the one in the Capitol let us see what our opponents could do. For most of them beyond District Four, the answer was ‘not much’.

 

As expected, that girl from the lumber and paper district went for axes. She could throw them like I could throw knives. My blades were weighted to stay straight on their way to the target; hers turned as they made their way through the air. They just as surely sunk into the heart of the body-shaped targets. She may bat for the other team in the bedroom, but if what she just showed us was any indication, I should continue to suffer her on my team in the arena for now.

 

I’d slobbered over many a new boyfriend, same with Justinian and the girls, so the behavior of Glimmer and Johanna in the dining hall for lunch was rather familiar, the inseparable pair all over each other. Would the novelty wear off even quicker than it had for my flings? Justinian lasted long each night, I would know, but he wasn’t known for lasting many if any more nights with the same girl. Would One and Seven’s tragic little love story even carry through until their deaths?

 

(Johanna Mason)

 

            When I tossed Glimmer around the bed, it was play, although rough, and she loved it. However, Johanna could just as surely wrestle to kill. I hid that in plain sight – I dominated Training Center instructors, but the other tributes lost sight of that amongst the glint of my axes. The afternoon of the third day, we each had private sessions with the Gamemakers, and I’d go through the same routine. Glimmer would undoubtedly continue hacking at dummies with her long knives. Claudia preferred her knives shorter and more airborne; she was the one I was most worried about as both an ‘ally’ and a fighter.

 

            I shared her bed the first night. The second night, she would go up to my apartment to go down on me, and we’d stay there. After dinner, I beat her to the elevators instead of sharing a ride up, so she could find me lying naked and spread-eagled on top of the bed. I resisted the temptation to touch myself in the couple minutes I spent waiting for her. Fortunately, she was smart enough to waste as little time as I had, playing with the unwrapped gift as soon as she found it. I was already on edge fantasizing about a repeat of last night, so I exploded when she started licking between my thighs right away.

She left the teasing for the second wave. She stood at the foot of the bed, swished her long light hair back and forth, and removed her shirt as slowly as possible. Her bra left her body just as slowly, but her stiff nipples indicated the pace she really wanted. I leapt off the bed to press her up against the wall and take one of those teats into my mouth. Then it was me in her arms as I sucked on that one and then the other. What was rough had quickly become very gentle, and she looked down on my head to say “I think we both need a shower, but you wouldn’t even let me strip, you dirty little girl.”

The shower machine was more than enough for one of us, but still had a decent amount of room for both of us. Once her clothes were actually all off, we took great pleasure in scrubbing each other carefully. I have to admit, the full-body air dryers were amongst the advanced technology here that was actually useful. The shower had a dizzying array of scents; she liked the pine one ‘because it smelled like me’. Those weren’t the trees I worked with, but it was sweet, and now wasn’t the time for a botany lesson, as we were fondling each other on the way to bed.

It was too early to fall asleep, so we talked, mostly about our lives back home. Her relationship with her little sister Lustre sounded much like me and James, but most of it was rather different. I quietly seethed about being one of the unlucky ones, but I wouldn’t have kept this lucky one in my bed if she didn’t seem sympathetic.

 

            The next morning, Glimmer’s mentor was cheerful as she came to wake us up. “Cashmere. I always wanted to be like her,” my bedmate yawned.

 

            As sweet as Glimmer’s flesh was, she had something for me in addition to her body the evening of August 5th. I recognized the wood, red-brown, here polished to a high sheen. “That is mahogany!” I shouted. There were indentations in the edges of its heart shape, set with jewels my luxury district lover could just as easily name.

She pulled at the edges and it separated into two halves. The gold loop at the top for attaching it to a necklace was actually two loops for two chains. “Our tokens?” she explained and suggested.

“We’re both heartbreakers, so yes,” I agreed.

 

Our training was rated on a scale of one to twelve. Glimmer and I both had tens to celebrate, whereas the best anyone else managed was a nine. Elm certainly didn’t manage that, let alone an eight – or seven. Guinevere Martell’s eight was the only training score to match the tribute’s district number.

 

            As the prep team passed me the leaf-encrusted bra and panties, I thought ‘This is the sexy I wanted on day one.’ Well, _something_ had spurred my lousy team to action! My skin was naturally the color of some sort of bark – this kind of tree costume I can deal with. “I called it a swimsuit instead of underwear, the tree-kini.”

            “Justin,” I said, now that I felt like addressing him by name. “It’s great, but I have a feeling it wasn’t entirely your doing.” _That’s why I wonder if it was really his idea, but even Johanna knows better than to say that._

            “Your girlfriend’s stylist motivated me to do better,” he explained, “but the specific idea really was all mine,” he finished confidently and proudly.

 

            Glimmer was fully covered, but considered the fabric used, that wasn’t saying much. “Nice, but I don’t need to imagine,” I told her as I winked.

 

            We filed into the studio for the individual interviews. The District One female always went first.

            “I’m here to continue a streak. For the luxury ladies, One! Two! We want three!” she said to announce her presence. Many of her fans took up the chant, and Justinian sort of joined in. Most tributes wanted their district partner to win if they didn’t; Glimmer and I were an exception in many ways, including that.”

“We know how you feel about one of the other tributes,” Caesar joked. He had become a master at working each tribute and the crowd in his decades of being the face of the show.

            “Beautiful and deadly, a concept I understand very well,” my girlfriend replied. “We meet just before we’re to be separated. If I don’t win, she surely will.”

           

            After 11 other interviews, it was my turn. As I walked to take my seat next to Caesar, I stared down the catcallers in the audience. “If I was reaped, I figured I’d make the best of it, and I’m quite prepared to do that, so watch out.”

            “Your ten certainly shows that,” he agreed.

            I finished by telling Caesar the story of the token, and I finished with “What can I say? We’re double and famous. Now it’s time for one of us to do what we came to do.”


	6. Growing Passions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously in Reaping Beauty: The 73rd Hunger Games’ female tributes from Districts One and District Seven are both actively bisexual and quickly become very interested in each other. Two girls from District Twelve ponder latent versions of such feelings and express them to each other. Meanwhile in the Training Center, Glimmer gets Johanna into the Career Alliance and into her pants – in public, they’re the stars of the tribute pool.

(Margaret ‘Madge’ Undersee)

 

Katniss and Gale were more than just friends and co-workers; it seems like everyone but her saw that. I could just as easily seen her in love with him and wondered. Gale was an angry man, and he probably would have been rather frustrated to see her with some other guy. Yet he accepted that she didn’t seem interested in boys at all. However, I had suspected she could go either way, and I was the one who got to her first.

 

Katniss Everdeen wasn’t the kind of girl to have boys chasing after her. Who else would, though? A strong young woman like her could be intimidating – even without the warped divisions of District Twelve. Most other people in town hated all things Seam. Her mother had been an exception in the most dramatic way. That made Katniss half a town girl in a way, but she didn’t look the part, and my supposed fellows hated her even more. Prim did look the part, and everybody loved her. Even some Seam folks had been led to believe that Townies were better, so some boys from Katniss’ own part of the district ignored her.

 

The baker’s youngest son seemed to care about her, but he faced the same district separation I did, and his witch of a mother probably amplified the hateful sentiment. Johanna and Glimmer had given us courage, and he hadn’t found a similar source of strength.

 

Well, their loss and my gain.

 

            I was waiting in the meadow fields when the two of them came back from the woods. Once they passed through the fence, Katniss stopped to talk to me while Gale went ahead to the Hob. “As usual, the odds aren’t in District Twelve’s favor,” she said. “So I at least want Johanna to win because of what she’s meant to us.”

            “Exactly, and Glimmer already has enough going for her,” I agreed.

            “I’ve heard plenty of Gale’s thoughts about the Games out there,” she said while gesturing to the woods, “so I’m used to that message. But he hasn’t said much lately.”

            “Maybe he hoped you’d be interested in boys in general and him in particular,” I understated. “I’m surprised there wasn’t something more between you two.”

            “I suppose a lot of people expected that…,” Katniss said.

            “Very pleasantly surprised,” I interrupted. “Because that means I’m the one who gets to call the beautiful Katniss Everdeen their girlfriend.”

            “Well, if you think I’m so pretty, kiss me,” she answered. My heart fluttered at her asking for it. I knew I’d have to take it particularly slow with her, but I also knew she was beyond worth it.

Her lips tasted even sweeter when she asked for mine – and when she was fresh from the forest she loved so much. “The woods on you smells sweeter than any perfume, not that we’d care about such things,” I told her. I very reluctantly let go of the skin between her breasts and hips – it wasn’t time to go for her sensitive spots, but having my hands anywhere on her body made me tingle.

 

I walked away from the meadow with her. She dug out the strawberries, and I reached in my pocket for seven assarions. “Bet these on Johanna,” I suggested. “I can’t bet, but if I could, I’d bet on her,” I said to explain how I was circumventing the prohibition on Games gambling by the district mayors and people close to them.

The bookmaker was hanging around in the square outside the Justice Building. This was legal, so he felt no need to conceal himself in the Hob. He was an independent operator, but followed the morning line odds from the Capitol. I overheard Katniss talking to him. “I have faith in the girl from Seven,” my girlfriend said.

“Johanna Mason, seven to one,” the bookmaker responded in a flat tone of voice. _Which fit perfectly with my plans for Katniss to bet seven coins on the district seven girl._

“Well, I have seven assarions,” Katniss answered.

“Done,” the gambler answered, taking the coins and handing Katniss a receipt.

 

“Considering how good I am with a bow, I might do well in the Games,” Katniss speculated, “, but maybe not well enough, and I couldn’t bear to leave Prim…or Mother…or you.”

 

 (Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

            We had five nights in the Training Center before the Games, and the last one was the fourth I spent in bed with Johanna.

 

            Hanna was suckling at one of my breasts again, and I told her “As much as I love my girlfriend, some day I want a daughter there.”

            Unfortunately she had to take her mouth off my areola in order to answer me. She was now using my tits as a cushion instead of a water bottle, but our bodies still painted an incredibly beautiful scene. We were both sitting up against the pillows of the massive Capitol bed. She lay across my topless chest as my arms supported her back. “I hope your daughter would look up to you as much as your little sister apparently does,” she said.

            “Exactly,” I replied. “In fact, because of Lustre, I eventually came to want my own little girl someday.” I paused. “Lately I’ve been thinking that ‘Johanna Shinesmith’ would be a beautiful name. Of course it would, coming from a beauty like you.” Johanna laughed, a sweet giggle rather than the hearty bellowing sometimes elicited from her. “Where’d badass Hanna go?” I asked jokingly.

            “Into Glim’s arms,” she said, parrying one nickname with another. “I don’t need to be defensive to protect myself when I already feel safe. Many lovers have made me feel good, but you’re the only one to ever make me feel like this. As pleasant as you are to look at, what’s really beautiful is your gift for understanding people,” she said to continue the sweet monologue.

            “I love you, Hanna!” I practically screamed, but not in an orgasmic way. “What I understand is how much it will hurt to leave the arena without this person.”

“And if I make it out without you, Glimmer Mason and Rose Mason would be beautiful names too,” she said.

I agreed, but added “Well, right now, Glimmer Rose Shinesmith is hungry.” She knew I meant a hunger of a different kind. She opened her robe and let her breasts hang out over the edges of the bra cups. I put the left one into my mouth, and she moaned as soon as my lips touched the stiff flesh at the tip of it. We hadn’t fully stripped, but the loose nightclothes made it easy enough to touch her wet spot. I stuck a finger right in her and she moaned again, louder this time. I swung my waist even closer and she quickly figured out that I was begging her to return the favor, and she didn’t disappoint. My climax soon followed hers.

We slid down beneath the covers with our arms wrapped around each other. “Hanna, we’ve got work to do tomorrow, but I’ll never forget the joy we brought to each other this week. I wish it was more than a week.”


	7. 21 Tributes (And A Victor Ain't One)

(Guinevere Martell)

 

            I, the female from District Eight, had earned her training score of eight. I admit I wasn’t some pretty face like the lovebird girls from One and Seven, but I felt I could fight as well as them, and that’s what mattered. I had taken a liking to spears in training – it was simple, stick ‘em with the pointy end. I do not sew, I had different work back home, so this was my needle. I was going to do more than just prick fingers.

 

It was a pity the axes and the spears were in separated parts of the Cornucopia weapons stash. This denied me an easy and early chance to attack Johanna, yet also failed to offer her the same opportunity. Such was the risk of entering the heart of the bloodbath; in this case, the odds favored both of us for now. Yet so many tributes died while fighting over supplies. Sometimes it even came down to the order in which the tributes were arrayed around the Cornucopia.

 

I ran through the boy from Six instead and I believe that commenced the bloodbath. Johanna wasn’t far behind me. Obviously a District Seven tribute would take well to axes, as we saw in training. Between the two of us, we annihilated District Six’s chances practically while the opening gong still echoed.

 

I saw Glimmer draw a long knife and hack apart some tribute or another. Robert, the boy from Nine, had apparently earned his score of seven. He bludgeoned the girl from Ten and his own district partner, a little girl named Catelyn, had the misfortune to be caught in the downswing. Three more were dead by the time the metaphorical smoke cleared and was replaced with literal smoke from cannons.

 

Not long after, a pair of cannons sounded. There was a solitary death before I encountered Johanna’s district partner. I was surprised he had made it this far. Johanna didn’t let herself be baited by the threat, which was smart, and besides, she was more attached to Glimmer now anyway.

 

I found someplace to hide and went to sleep, not one of the fourteen dead.  Only nine more, and I was going home – the odds were becoming more and more in my favor.

 

            The roles were reversed on the second day.  The Careers caught up with my district partner Kurt as we were coincidentally all running through the same sector of the arena. Glimmer wielded the same large blade and her blow cleanly slit Kurt’s throat. Those around me had often joked that Glimmer’s edge had to do with performing sexual favors for the Gamemakers. Well, even if that was truth in a jester’s veil, that wasn’t the whole truth of her ten in training.

 

My mentor Cecelia didn’t have that sense of humor, though. Mrs. Weaver was far too sweet for that. She knew what Glimmer and Johanna were doing, for she knew the Games and she knew herself. She had emphasized her boyfriend back home, the crowd’s favor helping her actually return to him. Their wedding was one of my earliest memories, on the steps of the Justice Building right then and there. Boy or girl, Glimmer and Johanna were playing the same game on another level.

 

I was flushed out of hiding, but I didn’t charge blindly towards Glimmer as I hoped Johanna would have done to avenge Elm. It was Poseidon, the boy from District Four, that I had a good chance against. For a few short moments, we clashed spear shafts as if they were sword blades. I landed what seemed like a glancing blow on his shoulder, but it hit a major blood vessel, he fell, and I ran.

 

And then there were eight, always a turning point in the Games. All of One and Two, as well as the girl from Five, the boy from Nine and a certain girl from Seven remained in my way. There were several decades between the young Cecelia and the ancient Woof, yet it wasn’t too long before Woof when Stitch won the very first Games. It wouldn’t be too long after Cecelia when Guinevere won these Games. You either win or you die, and eventually your concern is reduced to you alone.

 

(Johanna Mason)

 

            I was confident that I was going to win, maybe Glimmer, so I was wholly unsurprised when both of us made it to the final eight. “Attention tributes!” rang out Claudius Templesmith’s trademark voice. _How could he be so dispassionate as our emotions rose to bloodshed? How could anyone in the Capitol, really?_ Caesar Flickerman had always been more of a showman; no wonder ol’ Claudius was relegated to making these statements, however deep the Templesmith brogue. “There has been a change in the rules. If the final two tributes are from different districts, they shall win the Games together. May the odds be ever in your favor.” The remaining Careers, my dear Glim included, enthusiastically mouthed the last eight words as if they were students repeating a teacher’s lesson.

 

No one could have expected what the Gamemakers had in store for those last eight. Anyone with the brains of a pine needle could figure out that offer was intended for the Sapphic pair of One and Seven. However, the other six were undoubtedly calculating other possibilities. Our audience appeal must have been even stronger than I thought. The Capitol must’ve realized that separating us wouldn’t have gone over well.

 

So I had a chance to save the life the young woman I now loved more than anything, and her me. This was rather than one or the other – that had grown into our darkest fear, which was saying something in this forest of steel shared with those who had their own dreams of survival in mind. The Capitol was the real enemy, and taking Glim away from me would have made me hate them even more, but their arena had turned six fellow folks from the districts into our immediate enemies.

 

 Annabel, Guinevere and Robert were all somehow managing to do a good job of evading my axe. Guinevere was a crafty little bitch – she set up a field of spikes and managed to lure Justinian into it – the way she attacked, she left him two choices, neither good - either impalement on those stakes or on her spearhead.

 

It turns out Annabel died the next day; it must have been either Guinevere or Robert that got to her. She had been Lars’ district partner, a boy who was Glimmer’s first kill. Even I was surprised by the brutality my lover proved herself capable of, and I had just done much the same, cutting down Sarah, whose district partner Paul had also been a victim of the early slaughter. Well, Paul is dead and I’m not.

 

            The supplies were more than just food and weapons; a bracelet watch was one of my favorite gadgets from the pile. With it I noticed that the fifth day, August 11th of the 73rd year after the Dark Days, had almost ended without any more bloodshed. However, at 23:51, the infernal District Eight spear girl re-emerged. Claudia tried to throw knives at her, but Guinevere’s agile running foiled that, especially in this light or lack thereof. With my ally stabbed, I swung at the attacker. The thin steel shaft of her spear was no match for the heavy blade of my mighty axe. With Guinevere disarmed, my kill was brutal but quick.

 

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

            Alpha was my district partner, but Johanna was my true partner – incredibly strong and amazingly sexy Hanna, a physical wonder with beauty inside to match that outside. Yet we all saw her vicious side as the fifth day of the Games turned into the sixth. How to counter Guinevere’s long spear had been the big problem for us Careers. We thought the answer was Claudia throwing even farther than Guinevere could thrust, but for some reason that hadn’t worked. There was no way I could have reached her with my machete; it had been no sure thing even with Johanna’s big axe, and it probably would have been similarly risky with Alpha’s sword.

 

            In the Training Center, Gloss had helped preserve our privacy, but there was no privacy in the arena, so Hanna and I kept our hands to ourselves. Alpha took prurient interest in what we were doing. “Next time he says ‘I wanna watch’, I’m gonna fling this bracelet clock at him,” Hanna muttered. Yet soon enough, me and her would be wrapped in each other’s arms and more, on the hovercraft out of here and the trains back to our homes. I didn’t know what came next, but I knew we’d want to be by each others’ sides as much as possible.

 

The seventh day in the arena, Robert chanced upon Alpha, while Hanna and I sat and watch them duel each other. They would at the least wear each other down. I think they had at least the intelligence of a copper coin, and would make common cause against us if they were aware of our presence. So our location was unknown as Alpha’s sword blade met the handle of Robert’s hammer. Robert eventually collapsed Alpha’s chest with a direct heavy blow.

 

I had always dreamed of winning the Games, and Hanna had prepared to, and now there was only one man between us and something we had never thought possible.


	8. The Afterglow

(Johanna Mason)

 

The odds were now two against one, and for two people as close as me and Glim had become, the situation was even better than the numbers indicated. With Alpha lying dead on the arena floor, his blood mingling with his clothes, there were no district pairs left. So whoever the final two were, they’d win together. However, I figured that most everyone not from District Nine wanted to see Glimmer and I remain in the public eye. The fallen tributes were usually forgotten except by a few people in their home district. Yet Glimmer and I had enough appeal to change seventy-two years of only one victor; what other power did we have?

 

We tried to spring a trap on the supposedly victorious Robert, yet he sensed it and ran just in time. However, we prevented him from looting Alpha’s body. This would hopefully hasten our last opponent’s fall by way of lack of supplies. A Capitol claw captured the comrade’s corpse. The District Seven tribute train had a cargo car attached with empty coffins that would soon be filled. For all I know, the Capitol had made Elm make his own grave out of his namesake wood, and now this rich boy would join him, just as dead. _We shall make Robert join them_ , I thought grimly.

 

Yet to press our advantage, we’d need both of us on the chase. A drowsy Glimmer was in no shape to run and I had no desire to gallop through the dark. Besides, Robert’s hammer seemed to be made of iron or some other opaque substance, so his weapon blending into the night would put us at further disadvantage right now.

 

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

            I drifted off to sleep as Hanna guarded her Glim. We would switch places in the middle of the night. This is exactly what we’d done the last few nights, and we were still here, so it must have worked, right? This time, she didn’t rouse me with a simple tap on the shoulder, no. I felt a hand slip beneath the waistband of my underwear, right where Hanna belonged, pressing all my buttons as she flicked a fingernail over that knob. “You’re not dreaming, Glim,” she cooed. “Your Hanna thinks it’s been far too long since she tasted your treasure.”

            Miss Mason did like talking about herself in the third person, but as my body started quivering, I decided to not question her grammar. “Well, don’t wait any more,” I replied through ragged breaths. I sit up to groggily fumble at her waistband. She pulled down my pants and underwear in the same motion. We opened our blouses to each other as we had more than a few times before, but now we didn’t have the patience or the security to get fully undressed.

            I thought she would kneel in front of me, but she turned around to point her legs at my face as she laid on top of me. Her half of our token pressed into my bellybutton and I saw my chain against the same portion of her chest. Her forest was as close to my mouth as my gem was to hers. As our tongues struck each other’s sweetest spots, we muffled each others’ moans and screams of pleasure, but they rang loudly enough through our hearts. “You get to wake up and I get to go to sleep in the best way possible,” she said as she rolled over so _I_ could climb off of _her._

 

Hanna’s harsh side brought her (and me) so far. Rest softened those features, and I loved that side of her too. A few hours later, as the sun started to rise, I saw Robert, and shook Johanna’s shoulder. “No time for fuckin’, babe, there’s some fightin’ to do.”

“I ain’t even dressed, must’ve fallen asleep fast,” she observed.

“Lookin’ atcha sure kept me awake,” I laughed as she yanked her pants back up and gave her blouse some semblance of buttoning. My hand was still slicked from the last round of touching myself; I wiped it on the outside of my pocket before handing Johanna her axe and picking up my machete.

 

We chased him with a few feet between us to more easily outflank Robert when we finally caught up with him. He swung towards his right, at me, yet I jumped and his hammer went lower than it usually did, so I merely tripped. It would have made sense to finish off one enemy before another had a chance to face you; had he devoted himself even more fully to the right swing, he may well have won. I started to rise dazed and bruised, and Johanna taunted “She still looks better than you!” She planted her axe head in his back. _We did it._

 

(Katniss Everdeen)

 

            I was full of energy from the victory, an end to the Games much better than I could have expected. I figure I ought to channel this energy into a particularly productive hunt. I had worked up quite a sweat chasing after critters in this stifling midsummer heat.

 

            Madge was waiting near the fence for me like usual. Gale was willing to leave us alone, or maybe he just didn’t want to think about it, so also like usual, Madge approached me after Gale left first for the Hob. _Where’d she want to put her hands this time?_ I couldn’t escape the memory of her touch, warm but warmth of a different kind.

 

            “You need a bath,” she said simply. “And you’re still the prettiest girl in this district,” she said while pulling my waist close to hers. _That warmth again…_ “Maybe I could help you with that – I bet you look even more beautiful without your clothes on.” She kept making me feel better and better, so although I didn’t quite understand it, I let her keep going and I made a detour to Fort Undersee with more than dropping off strawberries in mind. Her father was busy in his office, maybe with business relating to the end of the Games.

 

            There was a washroom next to her bedroom. I neatly put down my jacket, short, pants and underwear and nervously sat on her bed while she got the hot water ready. This was the first time I had shown my body to anyone outside the family, and the thought scared me, although it also brought on some of the same warmth Madge had been giving me the last few days. “Katniss, the hot water’s ready,” she called through the wall. I walked in expecting to see her in the same plain school clothes she wore to greet me, but she wasn’t wearing anything either!

            I stopped in my tracks and my mouth hung open. “Like what you see?” she asked cheerfully. _Apparently I did,_ I thought as I focused on the yellow tuft of hair between her legs. “Because I sure do,” she added. “Seeing all that glistening dark skin of yours makes me want to do this,” she continued before touching herself _there_. She moved her hand around and was soon shaking all over. She had sometimes made me feel very warm, but now I felt like I was on fire. “Try it,” she suggested. “I bet you’re soaking wet down there.” I was very suggestible right now, and sure enough, my I felt damp hair running under my fingertips. “That happens to a woman when she’s really in love,” she explained.

            I breathed as raggedly as if I had come off a long run, but I managed to say “Apparently I love you, Margaret Undersee.”

            “And I love you, Katniss Everdeen. Keep going, you’ll be glad you did.” I had no idea where to put my fingers, so I moved them around aimlessly, but soon enough, I noticed I was shaking like Madge had been. I felt like I never had before, and I was even sweatier than when we started playing this little game.

            “I like this game,” I told her. It seems my body had already told her that, so she simply smiled back at me. She dramatically pointed to the tub. I needed that bath even more now, so I climbed right in. Washing oneself was such a simple task, yet I slogged through it lost in a daze over what Madge had just showed me. She watched me in the tub so we could look at more of each other’s bodies. When I stepped out, my legs were surprisingly unstable. She handed me a large plain cloth. Once I dried off, I said “I don’t have any more of my clothes with me.” _I don’t know how I had overlooked that before coming here._

            “I think you’d look beautiful in my clothes too,” she offered. We walked hand in hand back to the shelf of clean clothes in her room. She wore the same kind of things I did, just softer fabrics. She was about my size, although a healthier weight, so the stuff fit me fairly easily, although a bit loosely. She carefully slipped the white underwear onto my body and the green dress over my head. She did well setting the braid that had become disheveled in both work and play.

 

            It would feel odd showing up at the Hob in such nice clothes, hardly the oddest thing I’ve felt today, but still, I went right home.

 

            “Reminds me of the nice clothes from my Town days,” Mother said of my new outfit. Those artifacts of her past were precious to her, a reminder of the relatively good times before her parents and the Capitol’s mines took it all away. Ironically, I had worn some of her nice old clothes to this recent reaping and the ones before it, and those days were the worst of times.

           

            “Apparently you had some fun with Madge,” Prim observed after Mother left the room.

            “Very much so, Little Duck,” I agreed.

            “Maybe because your clothes had to come off before hers could go on,” she realized.

            “Little Duck!” I shouted while laughing nervously.

            “You already knew your dear little sister was smart, well, I’m even smarter than you thought,” she said with a confident smile. I hoped Madge would let me keep these clothes, the first time I remember giving a damn about such things beyond my practical hunting apparel.

 

(Margaret ‘Madge’ Undersee)

 

            Katniss and I playing with our bodies together was the hottest thing ever. I had touched myself to the memory as I had done in front of her when it happened. A few days later, I didn’t meet her at the fence only to see her come walking up the path to my house. “Does Katniss need another bath?” I teased in a whisper.

            Her face lit up, another smile highlighting her pretty cheeks. “From you, I do,” she answered.

            “Well, step inside, Katniss,” I said. As soon as she did and closed the door behind her, I kissed her, wrapping my arms around her neck to pull her face closer to mine. I stuck my tongue out from between my lips, brushing against hers. This felt even better than just our lips against themselves, as I expected, even more so when she opened her mouth and I put my tongue inside it.

We ran hand in hand to the bedroom, and I cast a smile while saying “You can’t take a bath with your clothes on.” Once her jacket hit the floor, I went for the waist of her untucked shirt and ran my hand up inside it until I felt her bra – or my bra, I suppose. I went under the cup to finally put my hand on her breast as I had long since dreamed of. My fingertips were met with a very stiff nipple. “That also happens to a woman when she’s in love,” I explained as I ran the telltale sign of sexual arousal inbetween my fingers. She squirmed and pulled away from me only long enough to shed the rest of her clothes. For the second time in real life after many times in my dreams, I saw Katniss Everdeen completely naked.

“You know what feels even better than putting your hand there?” I asked.

“I can’t imagine anything making me feel even better than that,” she answered, honestly clueless.

She’d get a clue soon enough. “Somebody putting their mouth there,” I explained. I instantly began to demonstrate, putting my hands on her breasts to push her down onto the bed and kneeling in front of the intoxicating sight and aroma. I flicked my tongue at her crotch, and sure enough, it drove her wild. I pushed my fingers into her and then got out a small smooth metal tube that I put in right after taking my fingers out. I myself had often used that cylinder for that purpose.

Still in a daze, she didn’t speak much until after bathing and dressing. “That was amazing. How did you learn how to do all that?” she stammered

 

            “I had plenty of time to think about this, Katniss. But next time you _need a bath_ , we trade places.”

            “I bet I’ll be dirty again soon,” she said mischievously.


	9. Six Districts And Six Hundred Miles

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

            “Glim, I knew you had it in you!” Cash had been one of the first people to see me after we landed in the Capitol, and this was one of the first things she had said to me. “I didn’t know you’d have a she on you in the process,” Cash joked.

            “I’d get on her any day!” Hanna agreed, speaking to our small group as a whole. Then she turned to speak to Cashmere in particular. “Her momma sounds pretty mild, she’s the lady who made her, but you’re the lady who made her awesome!”

            “Thank you, Miss Mason,” Cashmere responded gracefully. She had taught me that as much as deadliness.

            “She knew darn well I went both ways,” I explained, “and that my charms would help me become a Victor. Yet this already seems beyond my wildest dreams.” I stood with my heroines as one of them, like I had long since wanted. Yet I had only recently decided to be my district’s third Victor in a row, and I never expected to win with such an awesome girlfriend. Hanna’s ferocious attitude added to her toned physique to equal the best I’d ever had by a long shot.

 

            I needed a long hot shower, one that would be even hotter with Hanna under the water with me, but more than that. Our trainers had stressed the physical demands of the arena, and they were right about that. However, now that I had been there, the mental strain felt like more than just something to push through. Perhaps the trainers left that out because they were trying to push through it themselves, maybe they didn’t want to leave us downcast. On the bright side, it seemed the hard part was done and now it was time to bask in the benefits.

 

            “Robert and Tom Wall were the major sponsors for both of you,” Cashmere explained. “Rich gay couple who support any special tributes on their radar. For them it’s about more than just winning bets, although it’s certainly that too. Six years ago was their last big year.”

            “Rubeus,” I announced. Cash would be pleased that I had remembered my Victor trivia. As a Victor, he got as much respect as the other 66 before him and now 7 after him.

            “Ruby London? Gay? Surely you jest!” Hanna interjected. We all laughed. The boy made it obvious. I wish more girls were that clear, but at least Hanna had been, and she was more than enough woman for anyone. I hope she felt the same way about staying with me.

 

            “Once we’re done with our shower and done with each other, we’ll probably need another shower,” I smirked. We left the tribute uniforms in a jumbled pile on the floor of my bedroom. They’d probably be destroyed, since they were customized to the arena and each tribute’s measurements. I don’t know how they could be cleaned.

 

            When the water runs gray, you really needed a shower. When the water runs red, you’re lucky you were able to make it to the bathing room. The caked grime and dried blood flowed off our bodies. We each lewdly rubbed soap around our lady parts in full view of the other, not neglecting cleaning the rest of our bodies, but knowing full well what we wanted to focus on. With the scented foam rinsed off, I went to finger her and purred “In a shower, how will I know if you’re wet?”

           “I’ll always want a piece of your hot little ass,” Hanna shouted back. She grabbed that body part with both hands and pushed me up against one of the flatter walls of the stall, grinding against me while sticking her tongue in my mouth. My back would surely have small marks from the fixtures, but they would be nothing compared to my arena wounds, and the prep team would fix up both before we made our glorious return home. As I whispered “more…more…more,” I pretended to struggle only to rub my nipples up against hers. I told her that “We fit together so well in more ways than one”.

   
(Johanna Mason)

 

            Finally the Capitol fuckers finished prettying us up and otherwise preparing for the spectacle. And yet wild Glimmer had attracted me as much as tamed Glimmer. The prep team before the Games just needed to polish away the marks of an ordinary life. The prep team for Victors needed to clean up the physical damage of extraordinary survival.

 

            Caesar still had his usual chair, but the tributes’ chair had been replaced with a short couch for both of us. We walked toward it hand in hand wearing the same style of dress, although our different appearances and attitudes still made us very much distinct. As the crowd’s screams rang louder than axes, I realized why folks like Glimmer volunteered for this.

 

            A large screen played the highlights of our Games but wisely left out our little tryst form one of the later nights.

 

            I knew that the two of us would make a wonderful couple for a long time. Glim would really enjoy the grand romantic spectacle, so I’d ask her. As Caesar was about to wave us off stage, I gazed at Glimmer yet again, but this time clasped one of her hands with both of mine. “Glimmer Rose Shinesmith, will you marry me?” She answered with her mouth, yet silently, kissing me as furiously as she ever had, which was saying something.

            “I’d say that’s a ‘yes’,” Caesar observed.

 

“Such a union is as valid as one of each, as the audience is probably aware,” Caesar explained.

            “Yeah,” I shot back. “The Capitol makes many things illegal; that actually is not one of them.”

            “I could call for a recordkeeper right now,” Caesar offered.

            “Oh no, I bet my Glim wants a big fancy wedding. I also bet she’d want her awesome little sister there,” I answered.

            “The odds are in your favor on that bet,” Glimmer answered, grinning. “Not only do we get to spend a Victory Tour together, but our whole lives!”

 

            Caesar was cheerful and enthusiastic even for him when answering us, the smarmy showman. “Why not both? February 14th 75 at the end of your Victory Tour?”

            We looked at each other and said ‘Yes’ in unison through our smiles. Pretty much the whole crowd rose with us as we rose to take our bows, those who weren’t still standing from the proposal.

 

            We’d be traveling back to our own home districts for now. “The longest five and half months of my life!” Glim told me. However, Districts One and Seven were accessible on the same train track, and we savored those moments together on the car, especially as we huddled in the darkness of the tunnels through the mountains surrounding the Capitol. I don’t think anything could scare us after the arena, though.

 

            District One surrounded those Capitol mountains, so I soon had to kiss her goodbye, as deeply as I dared in front of her father. However, Lustre looked at me and said “I’m gonna have two awesome big sisters now!” All of the living District One victors were present to welcome home their newest member and the two previous members who had helped bring her home.

 

            I even hugged my little brother James when I got home. Dad said “If anyone from here couldn’t made it out of there, it was my daughter. ‘Bout time someone from Seven did. Didn’t expected a daughter-in-law from One, but fine by me.”

 

            For me, feeling sappy used to mean sticky hands after I hauled trees around without gloves. Now I was swooning over Glimmer, having met my match in another sexy badass. We were now six districts and six hundred miles apart, but I still felt as close as when we first pressed our bodies together in the Training Center.


	10. Two Apart, Many Together

(Margaret Undersee)

 

            The two ladies who were apart, for the next five and half months at least, had brought many of their fellow females together, not just me and Katniss. We were hardly the only two to be inspired by the very public example. Some, like me, had already been very aware of what they were attracted to. Even for the ones like me, Glim and Hanna made it more acceptable to discuss it openly, and made it easier to find a like-minded lady.

 

            Oh, I was so glad I was realizing my dreams about Katniss Everdeen. Admittedly, she had to focus on weighty nonromantic matters. Yet she _had_ been clueless about love, but saw the truth right in front of her when seeing our Glim and Hanna right in front of each other. Her sexual inexperience was a problem I was more than happy to solve. I meant that. Seeing sexual pleasure begin to emanate from her body was even more electric than bringing it to myself, and I could barely wait for her to explore the deepest parts of my body with her mouth and fingers. However much she’d obviously fumble with inexperience, it would still be my Katniss trying to make love to me. Had she been straight, it would have been a very lucky guy, probably Gale, who got to teach her.

 

            My parents knew her in person by now, and as more than a strawberry vendor, especially with all the dates we had at my house. Memory of Maysilee seemed to keep my mother confined to my parents’ bedroom. When Katniss and I walked in there holding hands, Mother sat up and smiled, which she rarely ever did. Katniss would know what it was like to lose a mother to grief if anyone would. Her grim moment came nineteen years later and from the mines instead of the arena, yet the shells of Mrs. Undersee and Mrs. Everdeen were all too similar. Katniss’ mother arguably had it even worse than mine, losing the man she had given up everything for, in much the way she had been warned about. She had set herself up for it, a risk she took for love. With my sister’s reaping, my mother had simply been passively exposed to a cruel reality of life in Panem.

 

            I guess Katniss was so much her father’s daughter that she also loved a Town woman. Her mother would understand that. Also, being shunned for her choice of boyfriend, she wouldn’t take issue with her daughter being born to choose a _girl_ friend instead. It was about time I went to the Seam and met her family, instead of the other way around. I’m sure Katniss talked about me at home, as I did about her, and her family probably wanted to see more of the young woman behind the stories. Perhaps another mother’s sunken spirits would be lifted by the sight of a daughter in love. Katniss’ sister Prim had remained positive through the worst of times, partially because of her big sister’s attempts to shield her despite everything. Imagine how happy the youngest Everdeen would be at the best of times.

 

            “So this is the pretty and sweet Madge Undersee!” Prim said cheerfully when I reached the door of the Everdeen hovel.

            “Seems Katniss already had a pretty and sweet girl in her life,” I answered equally positively. Prim could have passed for a Townie, and had a much more pleasant personality than most of them. Katniss had the classic Seam look, and there were as close as two people could be. It reminded me how artificial life in this district could be. I didn’t have the hots for Seam women in particular, just beautiful women in general and this beautiful woman in particular. However, it would have been hard enough to find a good man in the Merchant Section (maybe helping make Mr. Everdeen so tempting to the would-be Mrs.), let alone a good woman who liked women.

 

            “Can I call her you-know-what?” I whispered to Katniss.

            “You’re about the only other person I’m remotely as close to, so go ahead,” she whispered back.

            I looked around and saw the back of her shirt with a ducktail hanging out, commenting “So this is why Katniss calls her little sister Little Duck.”

            “Sure is, but I think you two want to be alone now,” Prim assessed. _As alone as you could be in this tiny little shack_ , I empathized in my head.

            “You got that right, Little Duck!” Katniss told her sister, and Prim knew to leave quickly.

 

Katniss began staring at me very hungrily, although I suppose that look had to come all too easily to her. This made me feel even warmer than the late summer weather did. “Now it’s my turn to have a beautiful woman take care of my body,” I said as seductively as I could. Even that seemed to electrify her; I myself remember being that easily aroused and set off before my body got used to it. I stood motionless while she tried to undress me. I had picked a dress that fell down when the straps were knocked off, as opposed to a dress that was pulled over the head. She brought that to the dingy floor quickly enough. Oddly, she fumbled with the chest. “You can undo your own, can’t you?” I pointed out.

            “I get nervous when unwrapping gifts,” she answered. “I don’t usually get to do that, and I even less often have a gift like this,” she added cheerfully.

            “I do get presents much more often in town,” I admitted. “But having your love in my life is definitely even better.”

            Her hands were finally calm enough to get me naked, and she said “Now let’s see if I can give you something.” She put her mouth on my vagina and began licking - literally just licking, nothing else with her tongue. Yet as I had predicted, the point was that I was getting it from her. I didn’t need to act – _much_ – about how happy I was feeling. “You got that pipe you put down there?”

            It was in a padded pocket of the dress, so she hadn’t heard it fall. I reached down, being careful to show her my butt, and got out the piece. “Of course I do, I want to be very full there, just not by a man.”

            She took it out of my hands, sniffed, and said “Mmm, smells like Madge” before licking it clean in preparation to dirty it again. I bucked my hips at her. “I’ve eaten far worse” she commented before shoving it in me. She began moving it faster as I called out her name softly.

 

Katniss had been so afraid of love, not only because of confusion about what she was, yet also because of what it had done to her mother. Now she had a better understanding of what romance had done _for_ her mother. Katniss seemed to be such a natural at it, and not just in bed, as I was one of the few people she welcomed into her heart.


	11. Seeds Of A New Life

(Katniss Everdeen)

 

            Madge and I were hardly the only couple to feel the seeds of a new life growing, and for ladies like us, that phrase would not become literal. Mother had to admit it was a very effective of birth control.

 

That was one of the many things I had feared about love - the act of bringing a child into this world and raising it, especially considering the Reaping and all the other vicissitudes of life in the Districts. It might be easier for a Town woman like my Madge, but they still didn’t have that or anything else easy compared to the people of the Capitol. This fact was lost amongst many of those who passed for the well-to-do of District Twelve.

 

Madge had soothed many of my fears on top of all the interesting and highly pleasurable things she showed me how to do with our bodies (many of which involved one of us being on top of the other). However, I still didn’t see myself as a mother. As quickly as Madge and I grew together, both physically and mentally, we sure hadn’t yet gotten to the level of discussing that kind of thing.

 

I still found it odd how I was even thinking of being married to anybody. I wondered how we would have children anyway, since apparently neither of us were attracted to men. Maybe one of us would tolerate that just long enough to get a child out of it. Perhaps we would adopt an orphaned or neglected child from the community home. Imagine how well such children would do with not one dedicated mother figure but two. I had seen the hollow look in those children’s faces. I had done everything I could to keep Prim out of that situation after the mine explosion at the peak of our mother’s depression. There were some Town families that wanted another child, but they wouldn’t have anything to do with a ‘Seam rat’, let alone treat her or him as one of their own.

 

One day, I saw two Seam girls holding hands on my walk home from the Hob. The look on their eyes was pleasantly familiar; what I saw in Madge’s eyes was much the same. I waved and cheerfully called out “Two other friends of Johanna and Glimmer?”

“Sure are!” the slightly smaller one answered. “I’m Amanda Briarwood, and Anna Flowers over here is a real sweetie.”

“Thank you, Mandy,” Anna Flowers chimed in. “Katniss, I always thought you were amazing because you had the guts and the skill to go to the woods and the Hob. Now I think you’re even more special, knowing that not only do you like girls, but the mayor’s pretty daughter in particular.”

“Wow, thank you.” was about all I could say. There were a lot of things I wasn’t used to these past few weeks.

 

Anna wanted to talk more later. “Though I think there’s another not-so-good way in which we’re like each other. My father also died in the mines, I think in the same accident,” she said solemnly. Tears of celebration for my fellow young lovers quickly turned into tears of pain, tears I had rarely let out. It was incredibly gratifying that someone from the outside like Madge cared; I felt it was just as important to commiserate with people in the same situation who understood it all too well. Amanda Briarwood was probably hardly the first person from the Seam to hear their partner’s tales of woe.

Once I gained some semblance of composure, I told her “Anna, it was no accident. Even being who you are, you probably couldn’t have avoided hearing about Gale Hawthorne. Well, his father and mine were both poachers and Hob traders before us. The Capitol had them killed, not caring about unrelated victims like your father.”

I sensed anger rising up in her. “After all, they’re the same bastards who pretended my mother died of pneumonia instead of starvation.” That _was_ the Capitol’s usual falsified death certificate for when the lack of food finally became overwhelming. _There but for my father’s lessons go I._ There were probably people in the Capitol who died from eating too much who were oblivious to the real problem.

Anna’s older sister Ellen helped them scrape by via being one of Cray’s recurring bedwarmers. _Again, if it wasn’t for learning the woods from my father, that easily could have been me._ Ellen found herself going to men in town as well. Anna said she didn’t even have that opportunity – because of who she was, she wouldn’t have put on a convincing act for the ‘clients’.

 

Lately it seemed that poor lesbians in the districts were equally as downtrodden by the Capitol as the poor straight girls, instead of even more oppressed. They may lose track of that in the joy of their new relationships; I even thought that might be happening to me sometimes. Love of any sort was a major coping mechanism in the districts – distracting us from the Capitol’s machinations but also soothing the pain the Capitol inflicted on us.

 

I wondered what Gale thought of that. Speaking of Gale, he would have no trouble finding a wife now that he could stop waiting for me. Would he try to charm a Town woman, as my father had done? If anyone in this generation could manage that, it was him. Would that remind him of me, and in a good way or a bad way? I understood that he had returned to his old spot behind the schoolhouse, with more than kissing going on now, and that’s all I cared to know about it.

 

I was concerned with our routine in the woods. He seemed as effective a trapper as ever, but something was different. Perhaps he was growing apart from me without the hope of me falling in love with him. Many people had thought we’d get married some day, and it turns out that a lot of them had backed that up with money. The few people taking the opposite sides of those bets at long odds were doing relatively well for themselves right now. Perhaps I was growing apart from him considering all the time I was spending with Madge. I couldn’t afford to cut corners on the actual hunting and gathering, and I didn’t, but I often found myself rushing out of the woods and to the Undersee house.

 

A mayor’s family was often involved in planning their district’s Victory Tour stop anyway, but that was especially true for this district with these victors. Madge wanted the two of us to meet Johanna and Glimmer together. Anna and Mandy heard about this when I went to Mandy’s fourteenth birthday party late in the year. They wanted to join in, and eventually some other lesbian couples heard about it as well. Many, like me and Madge, had come out and gotten together since the Games, but several had already been in love for years. Two Town women had even gotten married right after the reaping like many young lovers. “Best wedding present I could have hoped for; I had been worried about walking into the hall with her,” one of them said.

My Madge was a model student, including beautiful handwriting, and drew a sign that said “From the ladies who love ladies of this district, to Johanna and Glimmer – thank you for a beautiful example.”


	12. March Of The Heroines

(Glimmer Shinesmith)

 

            This wasn’t exactly the first time a Victor’s relatives had joined them on the Victory Tour. Cashmere and Gloss’ father Chrome was himself a Victor, and Chrome’s father Facet before him. They had both mentored their children. However, this time the loved ones were guests.

 

Johanna was damn right that I wanted Lil’ Shiny at my wedding and that I’d want said wedding to be big and fancy. Saying it so publicly, when she asked me to become her wife, helped ensure it would happen. Something so significant, someone so significant, I could wait five and half months for, but enough was getting to be enough.

 

The ceremony would be in the Capitol itself, mainly as the crowning moment of our Victory Tour. Where to get married was a relatively minor issue compared to where we’d live afterwards.

 

Of course we’d live together, but would she move to District One or me to District Seven? Victors could invite their spouses and close relatives to join them in the mansions, and if any of those people were Victors too, they could invite similarly close folks to the first Victor’s house.

 

I knew my district was beautiful, but from the sound of it, hers was too. She was less willing to leave than I was. District One’s splendor, the product of human creativity, could be transplanted in a way that District Seven’s natural majesty could not. Lustre thought it would be a great adventure, and with her Big Shiny no less. Mother and Father were determined to remain in their girls’ lives at least. So the Shinesmiths and Masons were going to be one big happy family. My sister and father were artists of a sort, and District Seven had some involvement in fancy woodwork in addition to the mass-produced functional stuff. They could be involved with that if they didn’t just want to sit around Victors Village all day.

 

The Victor’s home district was always saved for last, after even the stop in the Capitol. What Victor’s home district had been a question for the first time ever. We would end in Seven, but stop in One after the Capitol instead of before. Our families would travel with us instead of making another stop to get them for the wedding. As glorious as a Victory Tour could be, it could also be nerve-wracking, and having them with us would be calming. However, they were not to make their presence known, one of President Snow’s many “requests” for the nonconventional arrangements.

 

We had lived in the District One Victors Village of my dreams since the Games. As we were moving out of that complex, my heroines were sad to see me go, yet still glad one of their favorites had made good in such spectacular fashion. And we knew spectacular fashion. Besides, I had long since learned that the community of Victors often transcended district boundaries even when their lives hadn’t begun in the same district.

 

Lustre now simply dreamed of winning the Games for the green and brown instead of the pink and purple. She’d be up for the second of her seven reapings this coming summer. Now, getting reaped would actually mean something for her, but she remained determined to volunteer at some point anyway, and even if picked early, she would still stand a much better chance than the average tribute. There were of course no academies in the outer districts, but she’d have the two best trainers in the world to continue her “education”.

 

            The memory of Lars attacks me still. When the trainers said you never forgot your first kill, they were right, but not in the way they had meant it. I’m sure the audience had loved the sight of dismembered limbs gushing blood, but I shook from the memory of it. That didn’t set in until after I got home, but I think I had subconsciously known as I had gone to make my second kill. I butchered the boy from Five. I cleanly slit the throat of Kurt, the boy from Eight. Even so, that part of the Tour wouldn’t be fun either. Also, I was the only person who knew how affected Johanna really was by her own brutality – deeply aware beyond what our fellow Victors understood in general.

 

It was as memorable as one’s first fuck, but that’s the memory I’d rather dwell on. My favorite fourteenth birthday present had been the big dick of a boy named Agate. I had been a size queen ever since him, perhaps until my heart (and cunt!) had told me I’d have a wife instead of a husband. I forgot when I got my first taste of pussy, but I knew who my last was going to be.

A girl named Amber had the pleasure of Agate’s large organ now; perhaps they’d follow Johanna and I as the next two-Victor couple. Since I knew a lot of my home district’s up-and-coming likely volunteers, I wouldn’t mentor for District Seven for awhile. I knew that new mentors were generally paired with veterans. Since Seven would have two newbies now, only Johanna would go in at first. Besides, Johanna would be 18 this summer, and me only 17. It would be somewhat absurd if my mentoree was older than I was.

Well, there was a lot absurd about all this, including how far along in my life I was given my age. Many people saw that as an accomplishment, especially when contrasted with the opposite, but sometimes it seemed overwhelming and I wondered if it would collapse on me. It sure hadn’t yet. Hanna’s body was one thing I sure didn’t mind falling on me.

 

(Johanna Mason)

 

            Having a nice axe as well as a nice ass, I knew a thing or two about keeping an edge. Glimmer both sharpened and mellowed mine. I had those conflicting feelings throughout the five and half months waiting for her and once we finally met again in District One; the tour train had picked up me and my family and my mentor first.

 

What was clear is that my feelings for her were as strong as ever. Some people didn’t believe I had feelings. Those people we knew in the district just thought I was riding the hottest body I’d found yet. Oh, I was certainly doing that, but some people would never understand just how much more it was. “If you ever tell anyone that I have emotions, I’ll kill you,” I told James. He was one of the few people I trusted to know I was joking when talking like that.

 

35 Laurel Drive had been a nice place as far as District housing goes, and a lot of memories welled up as I went through the rooms and the stuff in them. What stuff we had was scattered all over the place, even when we still used it, and even when it was still functional. I couldn’t resist my anticipation for the amenities of the Victor houses, including their ridiculous amount of space. Also, I usually hated Capitol paperwork, but I enjoyed writing 4 Victors Village on things. We had three living victors, but with the untimely death of Wreath a few years after winning the 52nd Games, I was our fourth overall. My Glim was the 15th District One victor, but had lived in their 12th house before she got to shack up with me. Facet Goldman had been followed into their 3rd house by his son Chrome and grandchildren Gloss and Cashmere. Their district had two dead victors, in addition to my oh-so-alive Glim moving out, so those houses would be reused before the Capitol built new ones, but called #13, #14 and #15. _See? We aren’t always talking about sappy stuff_ , I thought of telling James. _Even these things seemed interesting when it was Glimmer I heard talking about them._

 

Glimmer would be quite pleased with how I had decorated my bedroom, soon to become our bedroom – with gigantic sexy pictures of her. Lots of guys and some gals put eye candy on their wall, but not so revealing, and not of people they actually got to fuck in real life. Glimmer had sent me all sorts of images of herself at her breast – I mean best.

Life in District Seven hadn’t had many privileges, but knowing the right people at the print shops was one of them. Little did Glimmer know I’d put some of her special pictures to such good use, enlarging them to make it even easier to pleasure myself at the thought of her. I photographed myself in similarly provocative poses, scantily clad or completely naked, to fan the flames of her desire for that body and the woman it belonged to. _If she was a man, the blown-up images would have blown something up, that’s for sure_ , I thought as I looked over the finished posters and put them up on the wall so they could please her as much as I had been pleased by hers.

 

Glim would also appreciate my drawer of dildos, from a shop that rightly said they put the ‘hard’ in ‘polished hardwood’. I visualized shoving the longest and thickest of them in her treasure of a twat as soon as I got her in there and yanked her clothes off. The thought made me want to reintroduce my own body to the massive thing.

 

I hadn’t had a previous relationship that had gone this long _in person_. No one else had ever gotten remotely so intimate with Johanna and her southern old-growth forest. A storm’s white rain graced the rocky plains and mountains to the north only one or a few times before moving on.

 

I would always remember our months of filthy phone conversations – detailed reminiscing of what we had done with each others’ bodies and our own, and similarly thorough plans for what we would do. We wasted absolutely no time in making those plans a reality. We got alone as soon as the train pulled away from District One. We were grinding on each other so furiously, releasing so much pent-up lust, that it was the first climax I’d ever had while fully dressed. She was the first one to shed some clothes. More accurately, I shed them for her, pulling down her skirt and panties to reveal her dreamy ass. I spanked her hard, and she only giggled.

 

            Getting things off went on from there, but eventually we had to separate our intertwined pile of naked flesh to make the public appearances that were the point of this trip.

 

            In winning districts, everyone but the fallen tribute’s close friends and family seemed to celebrate. I figured we’d be grudgingly tolerated by the losing districts; that’s how it often seemed to go. The Capitol killed the District Twelve boy through me, so Glimmer was going to take a more prominent role here. This privilege of having two victors made the tour a lot easier, as the veterans Pine, Blight, Gloss and Cashmere all agreed.

 

Dozens of lesbian couples holding hands greeted us at the train station. At that point I learned how much of an impact we had made for certain girls in this country. It turns out their mayor’s daughter was one of us. She must’ve paid attention in calligraphy class, handing us a big card that read “From the ladies who love ladies of this district, to Johanna and Glimmer – thank you for a beautiful example.”. It was a wonderful gift for victors, people who by District standards had everything. It was quite nice to learn from the start how genuinely welcome we could be.

 

Eleven, Ten and Nine went smoothly, especially since we were responsible for none of their tributes’ deaths. Inspiring average girls to come out and inspiring people to treat them better after they did seemed to apply across the country; after all, the Games were one of the few ways in which the Districts weren’t totally separate. Many people waved at us or said what nice things they could; however, the mass acknowledgement idea seemed limited to those folks from Twelve or copied from them.

 

There had been one minor incident - the District Eleven mayor’s son was one of those boys who thought what two girls did was his business. He seemed to be acting accordingly. Due to who he was, we couldn’t do anything about that foolishness, but we were all too used to letting that kind of thing roll off our backs.

 

Some gay guys looked up to us along with all the lesbians. Ruby London was the only queer victor recently, and I heard he was happily married, but his love life wasn’t so public. There had probably been some before him and us, law of averages and all that. However, we hadn’t heard about it. All too many victors, straight or gay, were single. The arena hit some even harder than others, and that made them less appealing as mates. Also, they might not want to bring someone they claimed to love even further into the Capitol’s orbit. That reminded me just how much the odds were really in my favor.

 

Eight was the hardest part. The run-down factory town looked even worse than the other outer districts. It was just plain ugly, instead of beauty natural or artificial. I had killed Guinevere – however quickly, it was still brutal and she was still dead. Not only that, the boy had also made it far. For their district to nearly have a rare victory was even worse than just another year of being knocked out in the bloodbath slaughter. If they had been visited by just another Career, the anger would have been even thicker. It helped to see an outer-district victor with her, but Seven was still not Eight. Like Seven, their Peacekeepers wouldn’t tolerate it exploding into a riot, however well-deserved. Glimmer gave two impressions of One’s Peacekeepers - a formality, and people to deal with the kind of stuff that even the most sensible government would outlaw. I didn’t want to stare back at Guinevere’s and Robert’s families, but the script made us do that and recite hollow words in the process.

 

After that horrible experience, things went back to going smoothly. In Four, Two and to some extent Three, they even exuded some professional respect for their fellow members of the Games elite.

 

Glimmer was especially ready to move onto the fun part, our wedding. The stylists Justin for Seven and Stephanie for One were now officially working together. We all liked the idea of two distinct gowns instead of the similar outfits we wore for the interview right after the Games. This would make us even more distinct. I was glad to wear traditional District Seven brown and green in the nontraditional form of a wedding dress. Glimmer had been similarly intrigued by the thought of getting married in pink and purple. Both came all the way down, but not so long as to be tripping hazards. The sleeves were in one of the colors, lacy with our district numbers in the pattern. That color gradually faded into the other color on solid cloth as the main part of the dress. They already had our measurements from the initial Games styling.

 

I was stunned by Capitol opulence, and Capitol Hall was near the height of it in the middle of the city. As for the building’s sheer size, let alone its luxury, the Justice Buildings of even the large outer districts could have fit inside it with plenty of room to spare. It had changing rooms for the couple. Lacking a sister or female mentor myself, Lustre and Cashmere helped fix both dresses.

 

The ceremony went by in a blur, though I imagined every detail pleasantly ensconced in Glim’s memory. When we walked out of the dressing rooms and took up our fathers’ arms, the cheers rang even louder than any of our other appreciative audiences. I saw Robert and Thomas Wall, who perhaps had bought a way out of the arena for Glim and I, and the two Mr. Walls had some of their friends with them. Their happiness for us wasn’t so different than that of the poor girls out east, really. There was Snow, Crane, Flickerman and Templesmith, and probably some more Capitol bigwigs not familiar to the average District citizen.

 

Her ring was the traditional giant diamond, with the shape of and lettering on the band being her sister’s idea, implemented at her father’s workplace. I was given an emerald, maybe for another distinction, maybe to run with the District Seven green theme. Fine by me.

 

Caesar knew how to run this show as well as any other. “I will!” Glimmer and I shouted to each other yet again over the cheers. Pine and Cashmere were the official witnesses, as newlywed victors’ mentors traditionally were. We lifted the mesh in front of our faces for our first shared kiss under the shared name Mrs. Mason-Shinesmith (‘both of the above’ being a great way to avoid any naming problems), and no one cared that we shared tongue too.

 

The two halves of our jewel-encrusted wooden token were pressed together once more, with a longer chain to drape it around both our bodies as we walked back out of the hall even more together than we were when we had headed in.

 

The traditional victors’ feast at the President’s mansion was combined with our wedding reception. It was a long day and we were ready to stuff ourselves, but I refused to puke it up to repeat the process, and my bride and our friends and relatives thought the same. Now it was time to go back home and lead my wife and in-laws to their new home.

 

(Glimmer Mason-Shinesmith)

 

            Oddly, the end of my Victory Tour was a chance for final goodbyes, instead of a homecoming. I was merely passing through One on the way to Seven. Both districts would still get the full year of Parcel Day gifts. Admittedly, for the most part, the other people of my hometown did not desperately need that Capitol largesse. I got the impression that many of the folks in Seven really depended on it, though.

 

            There were many last exchanges, but those with my heroines stood out. “See ya in the Capitol, Glim,” one of our fellow victors said.

            “You too, Sapph,” I answered.

Hanna had previously joined me in admiring Sapphire Silversmith’s huge tits and thick hips, but I had long since known that fantasy was not to be fulfilled. “She must be real straight if she doesn’t want a piece of this,” Hanna said while grabbing my ass through the wedding clothes we were still wearing for the trip to her – our – home.

 

Train rides were familiar to me now, so I barely noticed the trip itself. I sure noticed the welcome party, though. They mobbed us at the train station and for the couple miles’ walk to Victors Village with my family carrying our bags of personal effects. It was past midnight, a cold winter morning, and they were still surrounding their hometown heroine.

 

            It was her house, so she’d carry me into it. I knew she was taking me right to our bedroom. On the wall right behind the door, there was a picture of yours truly. I was holding a recently-removed bra and thrusting my panty-clad crotch towards the camera. _So I was right about how much you’d like that one_ , I thought as I looked at myself and called out “Hey, sexy!” Those were the two words by which Hanna dramatically introduced herself to me six and a half months ago, and she lost her grip on me during her fit of uproarious laughter.

She picked me up from the floor and roughly threw me onto the bed. _That’s my bad-girl Hanna!_ , I thought. Yet that was the least of what she had in store for her bride. She reached into a drawer and pulled out a massive wooden cylinder. She carefully lifted my wedding dress, but quickly slammed the dildo into me, and did that so hard it tore my panties. I didn’t care about shredded lingerie as I bucked my hips to meet the thrusts. I was even going to keep the scraps of lace as a token of love from the woman who knew just how to bring on waves of ecstasy for me.

I carefully removed our gowns, savoring every wholly not accidental touch of my wife’s skin, the musculature hard as a tree trunk, before not so carefully grinding against her. She stood on the floor in a wider stance so as to spread her legs. I lifted our arms above our heads before thrusting my drenched lower lips right against her equally aroused outer female parts. When our buttons stacked up against each other, she started cumming and I kept coming; I was determined to fuck her as hard as she had just fucked me, a game that both Mrs. Mason-Shinesmiths would win, and this was just the beginning of the first of our many passionate nights together.

 

            Like many newlyweds, we thought of starting a family. I knew Johanna could be an awfully sensitive girl beneath her now-legendary tough exterior; I could see her nurturing our child, and she could too. I’d what-seemed-like-always wanted a daughter, so I’d carry the child. I wanted sons too, but I wouldn’t stop until I had at least one baby girl.

Yet who would father it? Her brother, that’s who. He was close as Johanna and I could get to a biological child of both of us. Likewise Johanna’s mother and father Mahogany and Redwood would be grandparents whether one saw that through their daughter or their son. James was too young to fuck me legally, even if Johanna would have tolerated that. _Who am I kidding? It probably would have turned her on somehow, to think about it or even watch it._ Johanna and I were intimately aware of such laws, including an exception for underage sperm donors when it was delivered indirectly.

            James had spilled his seed in a jar for me to rub in my pussy and try and get myself pregnant. “You know who I thought about as I was doing that?” he asked.

            “Yes?” I asked back, ready for him to confess.

            “Your sister. I bet she’s gonna be nearly as beautiful as you are. I say ‘nearly’ because Johanna’s always talking about how no one is as beautiful as you are,” he explained.

            “So my brother-in-law and my wife are both plenty smart enough,” I complimented.

 

(Johanna Mason-Shinesmith)

 

            Glim was right that the Masons and Shinesmiths would become one big happy family. They were all settling well into their new home; Lustre really was still finding her new life to be an adventure. Maybe James was the son Sunstone never had. What was certain was that the three guys got the hell out of there when Glim hit pregnancy mood swings and me and the other three gals hit that time of the month. _We want to get the hell out of here too, boys,_ I muttered to myself.

 

            _Pregnancy mood swings._ It still took me some getting used to the idea of being an adoptive mother in a few months’ time. Well, no one would mess with Hanna’s little girl, that’s for sure. If that baby ended up anything like her other mother, she’d be the most beautiful and sweetest girl in the country. Any sons of ours would also have wonderful women setting an example for them.

 

            I could afford a lot more toys now, whether or not they were of a sexual nature. However, it angered me how much money the Capitol made off of the products of District Seven even when they remained within the district. They extorted more than enough on the stuff traveling between districts, probably a big reason why they kept the district industries so specialized, but it seemed that for them there was no such concept as ‘enough’. I wasn’t going to go blind to that now that some of it was being kicked down to me. Yet as the sunrise came through our window, with the love of my life curling her naked body against my equally unclothed form, I found it hard to care.


	13. Twin Castles

(Robin Castle)

 

            Madge wasn’t the only girl happy that Katniss had found her. That had made it clearer to Gale that his future was with another young woman. Much of the District Twelve female population entertained the possibility of being that woman, a very entertaining possibility indeed.

 

            My sister Raven and I were both certainly amongst his new suitors. Or were we simply chasing him again? We had all long since lost track of who we had kissed out in back of the schoolhouse. He hadn’t been one of the boys I’d done far more with, let alone shared with my twin. He had hoped for Katniss as his first, last and only. He was a man of singular passions and Katniss certainly could have come to appreciate that had she been one to fall in love with men.

 

            I was taller than my ever so slightly older sister; even so, it was more than a stretch to reach Gale’s hot lips. That was a challenge we gladly took on, especially when it entailed him putting his hands on my hips to lift me up.

 

            Heck, I wanted to be as happy as Glimmer and Johanna. _And with that torrid a sex life_ , I added to myself as my right hand dropped below my waistband, all almost involuntarily. My family had seen me with Seam boys before, and not just my similarly lustful sister, so that wasn’t a surprise to them the way it would be to some Town families. And they knew Gale was a real good one. My dad Russel summed it up. “He’s real good to the family he has now, so he ought do the same for his new family too. He must be special to get my little girl to even think about settling down.”

 

            It seemed he was still friends with Katniss. He admitted to me he had been less interested in spending as much time with her upon realizing they weren’t going to have a romantic life together. Yet they were still good at working together like they needed to; in that case at least, he had the sense to not do something foolish. The passion that defined him could easily lead to anger, but he avoided letting that hurt the few people in this world he truly cared about. Katniss was one of them, had been one for nearly four years. In a few months, I could feel only a sliver of that, and that seemed plenty powerful enough.

 

            He even had started taking me to the Hob, the district’s black market, which had vaguely known about but ignored for my own safety. Yet Gale had a way of making someone feel safe while still exuding an air of danger. They were friends, even a family of choice, the people who frequented the place. This included the cadre of Peacekeepers who looked the other way. One of them was a funny charming redhead named Darius; it was a damn shame Peacekeeper regulations kept a man like that away from romantic entanglements. Even though his boss looked the other way, into liquor bottles and into the bodies of Seam girls, there were limits to what they could get away with.

 

            He understood that she was attracted to women instead; had she been attracted to men but not him (whether Peeta or someone else), I think he would have been much more hurt. Peeta was calmer but no pacifist; I suppose he thought similarly.

 

            The other boy who had badly wanted Katniss was also finding love with the twin castles. Peeta Mellark was running one of his big strong hands along Raven’s face before going in for yet another tender kiss. “I don’t call ‘em freckles, I call ‘em beauty spots,” he said sweetly.

 

Maybe Gale, being put into a similar situation, had given Peeta an idea which seemed more and more like a good idea as time went on. It seems the Mellark boy wasn’t bad with girls at all. Instead, Katniss was particularly distant, and it seems that rather than being frigid, she was quite hot for Madge. Raven had been mainly seen with Peeta for a little while, and now only with him, same with me and Gale.

 

            Peeta wanted the happy family he never had at home. Katniss’ parents certainly sounded like they had been very happy together before her father died, and that may have been part of his attraction to Miss Everdeen. Maybe he now dreamed about having that with Raven someday; he already seemed to have that when he came to visit us.

 

I think he had called Ruth Castle ‘mother’ more times in a few months than he had with Priscilla Mellark in the decade and a half of his pitiful existence. My mom had broken down the first time he said that. However, since the Castles were in the construction business, we could fix things. His birthday was on May 20th, and this recent one, his 16th, had finally been a happy one. He was used to the industrial equipment at his so-called family’s bakery, he was glad to make delicious things in our residential kitchen, and we were glad to let him.

 

Gale spent more time in the work room used by my father and brothers. The Hawthorne man laid traps for prey while my relatives worked on buildings, but they all seemed to have a knack for assembling things. He was good with his hands, I saw as he put small parts together precisely. My brothers Razorbill and Roadrunner gave him some of the things he put together with their old Buildwell Metal kits. Mom thought the models looked quite stable, and she would know, being great at the design work if not so good at putting it together.

 

            The 74th reaping was coming up. As children of early 56, Raven, Gale and I would be 18 for it. That made it our last. I knew that although we were close to being done, we weren’t free of it quite yet. We all got an additional slip each year, after all. Madge’s mother had lost her twin sister in their last reaping, and she was still a wreck twenty-four years later. I foresaw a similarly grim fate for myself if Raven went off not to return, considering how close _we_ were from having shared a womb. Well, Razorbill had finished with the 70 th reaping and Roadrunner with the 72nd, which helped reassure me that the odds would be in my favor too.

 

            It was different for Seam folks facing August 1st though. They had to take extra entries to get the food they needed, even those such as Gale who took from the Capitol’s woods. There was so much I didn’t understand about the other side of my district, but a wonderful man I understood, and a wonderful woman he understood.

 

Gale and I seemed to have plenty of _ideas_ as to how we’d celebrate surviving the reaping. He finally seemed quite ready to fully have a woman besides his dreams of Katniss. Raven hoped Peeta was having similar thoughts. “He’s not really just a pure little angel, I bet he’s a horny teenage boy too,” she confided in me.

 

            That same divide had obviously added to Katniss’ and Madge’s troubles in finding love, and would have been a challenge for Katniss and Peeta as well. Katniss’ parents had overcome it, now she had, and now I had for more than a night.


	14. Adams Versus Aurelius Round 2

(Clove Hawkins)

 

            All this talk of lady love actually confirmed my attraction to the guys – well, one guy in particular. Cato Adams. District Two seemed to have a lot of gay girls, and some of them had said that being able to ignore Cato was a proof of what they were. Well, not being a friend of Glimmer or Johanna was a reminder of what I was. Also, any sort of love seemed to be charming – I mean inspiring. I tried to not let on how lovestruck I could be.

 

            The Victors and Victors-To-Be of District Two had long since known about Ruby London. With him, it seemed impossible to not figure it out. Yet what he did in his Victors Village bedroom was his business, since he had earned his place in that part of the district with the rest of them. I think that was part of his idea, to be treated as well as any of our other trainees, tributes and victors. It was clear he and his husband Carolus were happy about Glimmer and Johanna, though they were quiet about it; they didn’t go wild like some of the ladies’ other fans.

 

            I met Cato because we shared the same dream, winning the Hunger Games, and the same way of trying to fulfill it, training at not so hidden locations in District Two with the intention of volunteering when we were old enough. I was a demon at throwing knives, as were most of our female tributes, including the last two such Victors. They happened to know it, so it’s what they taught us. Also, it seemed appropriate for the ladies, us often not having the raw physical strength to swing some of the heavy weapons. However, Sapphire Silversmith had the muscles. The giant of a woman from District One could swing a sword as well as anyone. That and her utter beauty easily carried her to victory in the 71st Games.

 

Cato preferred the longest swords and spears he could find. I did not consider this to be particularly subtle. _Boys._ However, many of my classmates had been in his bed, and they said it was accurate at least. I hadn’t - Clove’s crotch craved Cato’s cock, but the law said I was a bit more than a year too young for him. He said I was the special girl more than just a pretty face and a bedwarmer. I sure as hell had a pretty face too, and he knew it, and he wanted me in his bed as badly as I wanted to be there. Many couples wasted no time, consummating their relationship on the same day as the birthday that made that legal. I’m sure that’s what we had in mind. For now I’d settle for his hot kisses and the even hotter sensation that overtook me when I touched myself thinking of him.

 

This was his year in the arena – it was early for me, but I would have dared it now if I wouldn’t have been facing my boyfriend. I had three more years to bide my time, almost certainly with a victor Cato by my side. There was no love lost between him and his district partner – her mother had killed his father.

 

(Livia Aurelius II)

 

            Killing an Adams boy to become a Victor ran in the family. Nineteen years ago, the Hunger Games came down to my mother, the first Livia Aurelius, versus Cato’s father Julius. My mother won, leaving Julius’ knocked-up girlfriend home alone. Cato couldn’t know his father. I simply didn’t – Mother said she didn’t need men except for fucking, and I turned out quite alright. Did Mother even know who had impregnated her? One of her fellow Victors? One of the Academy boys? If the boys in her day looked anything like the current crop, I couldn’t say I blamed her.

 

I was two years younger than Cato. It was hardly unheard of to volunteer for the arena while a bit below the maximum age. Particularly skilled Academy students like me could pull it off, especially if the older students were relatively unimpressive. Clove Hawkins was a year younger than me, and she was ready. However, she was Cato’s current girlfriend. I might have been the best choice this year even had I been competing against her for the right to volunteer. Now it was definitely up to me. The family grudge match would strain the Career alliance, but it would also give the audience quite a show.

 

“Livia Aurelius the second” the Capitol drone went on. Victors’ children did seem to get reaped an awful lot, but it was no matter, I would have been volunteering anyway. The short fat red-faced Bertlynn barely even read the reaping slip before Cato stepped up. This was a sham in the inner districts, but deadly serious in the rest of them, and I wondered who we’d be presented with.

 

Not much, it seemed. The only threat I could see besides him was the District One pair, looking to extend an already unprecedented streak of three years to four. However, we’d known to watch out for them anyway. The training sessions revealed no particular strokes of brilliance from outside the Career districts. It seemed likely these Games would also come down to the District Two tributes. Aurelius versus Adams round two would have the same result as the first time around.

 

(Clove Hawkins)

 

“I dig chicks too,” Cato joked when Caesar asked him for thoughts on the recent victors. “Well, one of ‘em, she knows who she is, and I know how great she is.” He knew I was eating this up, and as usual, I loved his attitude. “You’ll meet her when she welcomes me back home.”

 

Careers often competed for kills in the bloodbath, but the fight over fights seemed especially bitter this year. Sparkle Silverman was the one to really get the Games started in a way the gong never did, as she stabbed the boy from Seven. The bloodbath was a blur, it always was, but I saw Marvel of One spear the young man from Four over who got to kill the boy from Eight. My Cato wasn’t too far behind, landing some expertly placed sword blows.

 

After a successful week of hunting down non-Career stragglers, a fateful day arrived. Nineteen years ago today, his father descended two meters and his opponent’s mother ascended to unimaginable heights. She hoped to mirror the glory on the anniversary, maybe thinking my big bad Cato would be distracted by it. The odds were not in his favor there – some said he was a brute even by District Two standards, but I knew he was still too smart for that.

 

The Career pack disintegrated at this point and Marvel made another less-than-intelligent decision as he sided with Livia. Sparkle and the girl from Four went to Cato’s half of the pack but still fell when the pack disintegrated yet further.

 

Two days later, it was down to the two from Two. It was a relatively clean fight by arena standards, Livia at range versus Cato hand-to-hand. Tribute Adams dodged Tribute Aurelius’ bladed ammunition and deflected some of it with his own blade. He outlasted her knife supply and delivered the coup de grace with a cut to her leg. Throughout the fight she kept running away from him to get room to throw more blades, but eventually Julius had caught up with her. Those knives didn’t have to be thrown, but Livia definitely would have been overmatched if she had tried to simply stab Cato with them.

 

This time, a Livia’s corpse was retrieved as another hovercraft came to pull Cato out alive. He had several cuts to show for it, from the blades he hadn’t completely dodged and his injuries in past fights. Yet he lived, and the Victor hovercraft always had medics to patch up the wounds the Victor had received in the process of becoming one. Yet my Cato wasn’t hurt too bad, especially relatively speaking, and the docs had easy work.

 

Once the Victor was stabilized, stylists and prep team fixed him up to display to the nation. Cato reveled in his success during a recap of the Games. “Teresa, I told you that would work,” he announced into the camera, speaking to his mother. I had always known it would.


	15. Lustre And Heather

(Glimmer Mason-Shinesmith)

 

            “In the arena, it’s a boy, but in Glimmer, it’s a girl,” Caesar joked. I had transmitted the medical report to the Capitol gossip team, coincidentally around the same time that year’s Games ended. Whatever else was going on, I could barely contain the excitement that I was getting the baby girl I always wanted.

            “‘Heather’. A beautiful flower, and my beautiful woman is giving us a beautiful girl,” Johanna suggested, and with the name or the reasoning I could not argue.

 

            I pulled out an old picture. It was taken in the Shinesmith house back in District One, a toddler sitting in a rocking chair with a newborn. I loved Lustre as quickly as she was brought home from the hospital, as rapidly as I came to love Johanna in a very different manner. My adoration for lil’ shiny made me want a daughter of my own some day once I knew how that worked, and now that was happening. I flipped the picture over to read a caption in Mother’s elegant handwriting. “60.08.26 - My two little girls. ‘Wow, is not doll, is real baby!’.”

 

I really had said that last part, I think. That was one of the first things I remember about anything. Well, once Heather was born, I’d jam my ass into that same little chair as I held another newborn, my own this time. My beautiful ass, as Johanna would be glad to remind me.

 

            I found the chair amongst the things we had brought from District One. It took actually seeing it again to realize I wouldn’t fit into it, even at post-baby weight, let alone right after the birth. I wouldn’t even be able to sit on the edge of it.

Then I remembered I lived in the lumber district now, and could easily find someone to make a scaled-up version of it. I previously hadn’t thought much about the chair itself, instead focusing on the memories created while in it. Now I focused on the furniture.

The wood and staining was neither particularly light nor particularly dark, but all the same kind. The backposts were cylinders slightly over half a meter high, not quite a quarter meter apart, connected by two flat slightly curved backboards. Towards the bottom, there were two squares of more wood cylinders making up the rest of the frame. _Dowels_ , I reminded myself. That was a word you learned quickly enough around here. The seat was seven wood planks each nailed down in two places, fanned out such that the seat was slightly wider with slightly bigger gaps towards the front. The armrests were curved but not wavy. The rockers didn’t have that much of a curve.

 

            It was hard to believe the newborn I held in that chair was now 14. Apparently James Mason’s dick was also hard. He still thought Lustre was pretty, and lil’ shiny thought he was rather handsome himself. At 14 you got to fuck people your own age, and James had turned 14 a bit less than 11 months ago. Our parents figured it was a good thing they were getting along so well instead of hating each other. _Or at least they resigned themselves to that in the name of thinking positively._

            “It isn’t supposed to hurt and it isn’t supposed to bleed,” I told my not so little anymore sister. “At least not usually. If it does, that probably means you haven’t been turned on enough and they aren’t being gentle enough.” No wonder that myth was so popular; a lot of guys were no good at fucking.

            It was easier to talk about stuff like this with your cool big sister instead of your mother, I suppose. It was also relatively simple to talk to your cool big sister-in-law. “Rub one out first to take the edge off so you don’t go too fast with her.”

“Don’t play with her heart, she only has one,” Hanna warned her younger brother. He wasn’t so little anymore either, especially with Lustre on his mind. “Play with her breasts, she has two of those,” my ribald lover added. Considering the magic Hanna could work on my nipples, she knew what she was talking about.

 

As expected, Lustre soon told me how it had gone with James. Apparently he had sucked on her budding breasts a little too hard, and shot his load nearly as soon as he shoved into her. As awkwardly as it went for them, Lustre was still smiling. He clearly wanted to please her, however inexperienced he was with actually doing so.

 

            Johanna said I was at least as sexy while pregnant. She didn’t need to prove anything to me, but I was nevertheless glad to let her demonstrate this. By this point, I generally didn’t make such a show of stripping for her. Nevertheless, one evening when I undressed simply, her eyes went to my belly instead of my boobs. She couldn’t see my cunt from this angle anyway.

“Adorable little girl inside beautiful woman,” she cooed while pressing her ear to my flesh. I’m sure Heather was going to be a cute baby, but she wasn’t so adorable when she kicked. Hanna felt that movement too. “Don’t hurt Mommy,” she scolded. We’d already decided that I was going to be called Mommy and she was going to be called Mama.

 

We almost didn’t feel the need to fuck. Almost. She did make a ritual out of removing her clothes, her hands lingering over the especially sexy parts of her body as she removed clothes from them. _She should understand “don’t tease horny Glimmers” by now_ , I thought. _Or she understood it perfectly well._ I got off with my own hand as my eyes devoured her. She seemed to find the sight of me just as glorious. I of all people had the pleasure of being very familiar with Johanna’s pleasure face.

 

Eventually my new rocking chair was delivered. Structurally, it had worked to basically just double the dimensions of the old one. It looked beautiful, and smelled good too. Johanna agreed there was nothing quite like the aroma of fresh lumber and stain. “Though I’d still rather have my nose in your pussy,” she whispered.

Lustre was the first to sit in it. I wouldn’t use it until I had my daughter in my arms instead of my womb. Johanna was next. They were both very thin women. If the chair had fallen apart at that point, we would have been rather concerned.

 

I was still confident I’d like being a mother, but the process of becoming one I was liking less and less. My own mother and my mother-in-law very much understood. Their presence along with that of my beloved wife and co-mother certainly helped comfort me during the birth.

I finally had my daughter! She had my vibrant green eyes, though we couldn’t yet see whose hair she’d have. It was a good sign that we all liked holding her, and she liked being held by all of us.

District Seven did not have a hospital, like most of the non-Career districts I suppose. So the doctors had come to our home. It was just as well. We didn’t have to worry about bringing the newborn home – we were already there. This late December weather didn’t seem healthy for grown people to be exposed to, let alone infants. Johanna said some lumberjacks were toughing it out, especially with Capitol yearly quotas looming.

Once I regained my footing, I carried Heather to The Chair, which we’d put in the nursery along with other things for baby. “Wow, is not doll, is real baby,” I couldn’t resist saying.


End file.
